Draft legislation enabling Austria to ratify the Protocol on the Provisional Application (PPA) of the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) is currently passing through the parliamentary process. The National Council assigned the bill to its Research, Innovation and Digitisation Committee in July and, as reported here, yesterday the Committee unanimously approved the bill. The bill now returns to the National Council for its second and third readings, and if passed will be considered adopted and Austria would be able to ratify the PPA. If Austria does ratify and deposit the instrument of ratification with the Council of the EU, sufficient countries will have ratified (or otherwise consented to be bound by the provisional application of certain UPCA provisions) for the provisional application phase to start, and final preparations for the introduction of the UPC and unitary patent system can start in earnest.