On June 1st, the EU’s Unified Patent Court will begin its work and the European Unitary Patent will come into force. This means that the patent no longer has to be declared valid in each individual member state.
The EU unitary patent is valid in the countries that have so far joined the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPC). So far there are 17 member states. According to the Federal Ministry of Justice these are Germany, France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Sweden and Slovenia. Other countries can join.