The start of the new Unitary Patent (UP) and Unified Patent Court (UPC) system has been delayed by two months, to 1 June 2023. As a result, the start of the three-month sunrise period has also been postponed to 1 March 2023.

According to the announcement – which was signed by Judge Klaus Grabinski (President of the UPC Court of Appeal) and Johannes Karcher (Acting Chairman of the Administrative Committee) – "additional time is intended to allow future users to prepare themselves for the strong authentication which will be required to access the Case Management System (CMS) and to sign documents".

Since the functionalities of the CMS have been positively tested and all other preparatory work is ongoing according to the published roadmap, no further delay of the start of the UPC beyond 1 June 2023 is expected. However, never say never.

We will keep you updated on this topic. For more information, read the the official statement by the Unified Patent Court and our UP/UPC informative guide.