In the UK, draft legislation authorising the ratification and implementation of the UPC Agreement was included in the Intellectual Property Bill, and yesterday evening that Bill received Royal Assent and passed into law as the Intellectual Property Act 2014.  It is expected that the UK will ratify the UPC Agreement shortly before the next General Election in May 2015, but that it will hold back deposit of the instrument of ratification until a later date when all practical aspects of preparation for the UPC have been completed, such as development of the IT system.  The provisions relating to the UPC are in section 17 of the Act, which inserts new sections 88A and 88B into the Patents Act 1977. It is expected that the Act will be published in the next few days; no consolidated version of Bill is available but the draft version of the Bill (here) contains the final wording of section 17 (further amendments to the Bill were made but these were unrelated to the UPC). We will publish the Act on our Legislation and documents page when available.