Unified Patent Court in the context of "Agencies of the European Union"

The main bodies of the European Union and Euratom are:

• the seven principal institutions of the European Union, including the one which is an international entity (the European Central Bank)
• other bodies of the EU established through primary (treaty) legislation, either as international law bodies (the European Investment Bank Group entities, the European University Institute, the European Stability Mechanism and the Unified Patent Court) or as bodies without juridical personality (the European Ombudsman, the advisory bodies to the European Union)
• the agencies, decentralised independent bodies and joint undertakings of the European Union and Euratom, which are bodies of the EU established as juridical persons through secondary legislation,
• other bodies of the EU established through secondary legislation, which lack juridical personality (e.g. European Data Protection Supervisor)
• the inter-institutional services

Apart from them, some several other bodies exist.

The European Communities (EC) were three international organizations that were governed by the same set of institutions. These were the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom), and the European Economic Community (EEC), the last of which was renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993 by the Maastricht Treaty establishing the European Union. The European Union was established at that time more as a concept rather than an entity, while the Communities remained the actual subjects of international law impersonating the rather abstract Union, becoming at the same time its first pillar. In popular language, however, the singular European Community was sometimes used interchangeably with the plural phrase, in the sense of referring to all three entities.

The European Coal and Steel Community ceased to exist in 2002 when its founding treaty expired. The European Community was merged with the second and third EU pillars by the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009, finally allowing the European Union to move beyond being only a concept and to assume the shape of a legally incorporated international organization with juridical personality, designated as the legal successor to the Community. However, the reformed EU has not become entirely unified, because Euratom, though governed with the EU by the common set of institutions, has been retained as an entity distinct from the EU, along with a number of other international entities, such as the European Investment Bank, the European University Institute, the European Stability Mechanism, and the Unified Patent Court.

Proprietors of and applicants for European patents have the possibility to opt out their European patents or patent applications from the exclusive competence of the Unified Patent Court (UPC). An opt-out most notably prevents a competitor from challenging the validity of the European patent centrally before the UPC (by filing an action for revocation before the UPC), thus allowing the proprietor to avoid putting all his eggs (i.e., all national parts of the European patent) in one basket.

The possibility to opt out is open until one month before the end of a seven-year transitional period after the entry into force of the UPC Agreement (UPCA) on June 1, 2023 but is no longer available if an action has already been brought before the UPC. The possibility to opt out is not available for European patents with unitary effect, which are also called "unitary patents". An opt-out can be withdrawn at any time "unless an action has already been brought before a national court".

The European patent with unitary effect, also known as the unitary patent, is a European patent which benefits from unitary effect in the participating member states of the European Union. Unitary effect means the patent has a common legal status throughout all the participating states, eliminating scenarios in which a patent may be invalidated by courts in one participating member state yet upheld by courts in another. Unitary effect may be requested by the proprietor within one month of grant of a European patent, replacing validation of the European patent in the individual countries concerned. Infringement and revocation proceedings are conducted before the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which decisions have a uniform effect for the unitary patent in the participating member states as a whole rather than in each country individually. The unitary patent may be only limited, transferred or revoked, or lapse, in respect of all the participating Member States. Licensing is however possible for part of the unitary territory. The unitary patent may coexist with nationally enforceable patents ("classical" patents) in the non-participating states. The unitary patent's stated aims are to make access to the patent system "easier, less costly and legally secure within the European Union" and "the creation of uniform patent protection throughout the Union".

European patents are granted in English, French, or German and the unitary effect will not require further translations after a transition period. The maintenance fees of the unitary patents are lower than the sum of the renewal fees for national patents of the corresponding area, being equivalent to the combined maintenance fees of Germany, France, the UK and the Netherlands (although the UK is no longer participating following Brexit).