The Italian parliament’s III Committee on Foreign and Community Affairs is today discussing draft legislation in the form of Bill 3867 (here in Italian) to enable Italy to ratify the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement.  The bill was introduced into the Chamber of Deputies (one of the two chambers of parliament) on 26 May 2016 and, after consideration by the Committee and approval by the chamber, must be approved by the other chamber (the Senate) and promulgated by the President of the Republic to become law.  As well as authorising the President to ratify the UPC Agreement, the draft legislation also includes changes to national legislation to implement the Agreement.  One such change is the introduction into the Italian IP Code of provisions on indirect patent infringement; currently in Italian law, although indirect infringement is acknowledged by case law, there are no express statutory provisions.  The bill also includes financial and budgetary provisions to cover the costs of implementation of the Agreement, but states that the costs of the possible creation of an Italian local division of the UPC will be dealt with in separate legislation.