Yesterday, the Privy Council approved the draft Scottish Statutory Instrument (The International Organisations (Immunities and Privileges) (Scotland) Amendment (No. 2) Order 2017), which will confer certain devolved privileges and immunities on the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and its Judges, Registrar and other staff.  Following the Scottish Parliament’s approval of this draft Order (made under the International Organisations Act 1968) on 25 October 2017, the Privy Council’s approval was the final step required to pass the Order.  (The approval will be published on the Privy Council’s website, and the made Order, SSI 2017/447, is published here.)

This Order is one of the two remaining pieces of legislation that must be passed in order for the UK to be able to ratify the UPC Agreement, the other being the draft Unified Patent Court (Immunities and Privileges) Order 2017   which, as reported here, is awaiting final approval by the Privy Council, having been passed by the UK Parliament on 12 December 2017.  This draft Order is likely to be on the agenda of the next Privy Council’s meeting, expected to be in early February 2018.