The law enabling Latvia to approve the Agreement on the establishment of a Nordic-Baltic regional division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) has today received Presidential assent, having been passed by the Saeima (Latvia’s unicameral parliament) on 26 October 2017.  This law comes into force on 1 January 2018, the same date as the law enabling Latvia to ratify the UPC Agreement (that law having received Presidential assent on 12 April 2017, reported here). Latvia, Sweden, Lithuania and Estonia signed the Nordic-Baltic regional division Agreement on 4 March 2014, enabling them to form a regional division of the UPC, the division being based in Stockholm but each country providing facilities for hearings and English being the language of proceedings. Sweden, Lithuania and Estonia have also passed legislation approving the regional division Agreement, and have already ratified the UPC Agreement. However, the regional division Agreement will only come into force when the UPC Agreement comes into force.