III. Unitary Patents: the concept
The territorial scope of a Unitary Patent
25This means that, although 25 EU Member States are currently participating in the Unitary Patent scheme, Unitary Patents registered at the outset will not cover all 25 of their territories because some of them have not yet ratified the UPCA. You will find a list of the EU Member States in which the UPCA has taken effect on the EPO's website. You can also check the UPCA's status of ratification on the website of the Council of the European Union.
26It is also likely that the outstanding ratifications of the UPCA will not take place all at once but rather successively. Consequently, there will be different generations of Unitary Patents with different territorial coverage. The territorial coverage of a given generation of Unitary Patents will stay the same for their entire lifetime, irrespective of any further EU Member States participating in enhanced cooperation and of any subsequent ratifications of the UPCA after the date of registration of unitary effect. In other words, a given Unitary Patent's territorial coverage will not be extended to other Member States which ratify the UPCA after the EPO has registered its unitary effect.
27The participating Member States covered by a given Unitary Patent will be are listed in the Register for unitary patent protection (Rule 16(1)(g) UPR) and in the EPO's communication informing the requester of the date of registration of unitary effect (Rule 7(1) UPR). The territorial scope of each Unitary Patent will thus be clearly visible and easy to establish.