Cover for the cost of pursuing or defending an infringement action, useful because the cost of litigation decides the outcome more than the merits do.
An intellectual property right is worth something only if its holder can enforce it, and enforcing it means litigation whose cost, in patent matters, runs to hundreds of thousands of euros per instance and per territory. A structural asymmetry follows: a small holder facing a powerful infringer gives up, not because it is wrong but because it cannot fund the demonstration that it is right. Intellectual property insurance addresses that asymmetry in two distinct forms, pursuit cost cover, which funds the offensive, and defense and damages cover, which protects the company sued. The line has remained narrow because adverse selection is strong, a company seeking cover just as it senses litigation coming, to which insurers respond with waiting periods and a prior audit of the rights. The creation of a unified court, by concentrating the litigation, changes the equation by making the stake larger and the cost more predictable.
The Unified Patent Court opened on 1 June 2023, offering for the first time a single procedure producing decisions valid across all participating states, in place of parallel actions before each national court.
IP insurance, assurance brevets, patent insurance, frais de défense en contrefaçon