This afternoon, the French Senate adopted the bill authorising ratification of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities (PPI) of the Unified Patent Court (UPC). As reported here, the French National Assembly (Parliament’s other chamber) had already adopted the bill. Therefore, the bill now requires signature by the French President and publication in the Official Journal in order to become law. Because the seat of the UPC’s central division will be in Paris, and the 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. (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.)