Law 2017-1840 of 30 December 2017 authorising the ratification of the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the Unified Patent Court is now in force, having been published in France’s Official Journal on 31 December 2017 here.  Because the seat of the UPC’s central division will be in Paris, and the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities (PPI) confers legal status on the Court and certain privileges and immunities on the Court, judges and its staff to ensure its proper functioning, France is one of the four countries that must ratify the PPI in order for it to come into force.  Also, one of the local divisions will be in Paris, and (under the UPC Agreement) the first President of the Court of First Instance (which comprises the central division, and regional and local divisions) must be a French national.  After France has ratified the PPI, it must deposit the instrument of ratification with the General Secretariat of the EU Council.  (France was one of the first countries to ratify the UPC Agreement, and it has also consented to the Agreement’s Protocol on Provisional Application.)