The Preparatory Committee of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) met yesterday to discuss ways forward now, as reported here, the UK has withdrawn from the UPC Agreement. The Committee has published here a short report of the meeting.

Regarding Germany, the progress reported by the Preparatory Committee on the legislation needed for Germany to ratify the UPC Agreement and the Protocol on Provisional Application (PPA), is confirmed by the fact that the draft bill has entered the German parliamentary process, it being on the Bundesrat’s agenda for the session next Friday, 18 September. The draft bill (448/20) is the same as that published by the German government for consultation. Therefore, the government has decided to proceed despite the concerns expressed by respondents to the consultation (reported here), including the risk of another complaint to the German Constitutional Court preventing, or at least delaying, the legislation being passed. As the explanatory document on the Bundesrat’s agenda states, the Bundesrat’s legal committee (the lead committee on the bill) and the culture committee recommend that the Bundesrat raises no objections to the bill. If so, the next step would be for the bill to enter the Bundestag.

It should be noted that even if Germany is finally able to ratify the UPC Agreement and PPA, two more countries must consent to the PPA to allow the provisional application phase of the UPC to start, during which final preparations, such as recruitment of judges, can take place.