Slovenia ratifies the UPCA
19 October 2021
On 15 October, Slovenia deposited its ratification the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPCA), bringing the total number of ratifications to sixteen. As it stands, applicants will be able to protect their inventions in at least 17 countries (the existing 16 plus Germany) with a single Unitary Patent (UP) when the system is implemented.
As we previously reported here, the UPC preparatory committee have indicated that they expect the system to be implemented in mid-2022.
Before the Unified Patent Court becomes fully operational it will first enter a “provisional application phase” which is expected to last for around eight months. The provisional application phase will provide the court with the legal capacity to complete all necessary organizational steps including the recruitments of judges. As well as the ratification of the UPCA itself, Slovenia also deposited its ratification of the protocol on the provisional application of the UPC Agreement, and consequently in order for this provisional phase to start only one further EU country is now required to ratify that protocol. The preparatory committee previously indicated that they expect this additional approval to be in place before December this year.
