The Unified Patent Court Agreement will enter into a provisional preparatory stage once 13 signatory states of the Agreement including Germany, France and the United Kingdom and having ratified said Agreement have ratified or expressed their consent to be bound by the Protocol on Provisional Application (A.3(1) of the Protocol).
France ratified the Agreement and also ratified the Protocol on 23 May 2017.
Lately (27th September 2021), Germany deposited its instrument of ratification of the Protocol and is expected to ratify the Agreement once the preparatory work has progressed sufficiently and the participating Member States are confident that the UPC can start in an orderly manner.
On the same day, Slovenia also ratified the Protocol, but has not yet ratified the Agreement.
As of today, 10 of the required 13 UPC states have ratified the Protocol (France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden). Austria and Malta are expected to be the next ones.
As reported by the Unified Patent Court Preparatory Committee, « it is expected that the two further required ratifications will soon be attained triggering the implementation of the UPC as an international organization ».