The Council of the EU has recorded here that Bulgaria deposited its instrument of ratification of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement’s Protocol on Provisional Application (PPA) with the Council’s General Secretariat on 24 July 2018. The PPA allows various provisions of the UPC Agreement to come into force early, and in this ‘provisional application phase’ final preparations for the start of the UPC system, such as recruitment of judges, can be completed.  Under Article 3, the PPA will come into force the day after France, Germany, the UK and 10 other countries have ratified, or informed the depositary that they have parliamentary approval to ratify, the Agreement, and have consented to be bound by the PPA (or by the provisional application of the relevant provisions of the Agreement). Bulgaria ratified the UPC Agreement on 3 June 2016, and signed the PPA on 11 September 2017 but that signature was subject to ratification in order to constitute binding consent. Therefore, Bulgaria has now met the Article 3 PPA requirements.  France, the UK and eight other countries (Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden) have also done so. Therefore, apart from Germany (whose ratification of the UPC Agreement and PPA is on hold due to the pending constitutional complaint), only one more country must do so in order for the provisional application phase to start.