Germany ratifies UPC Protocol on Provisional Application – Slovenia and Austria en route

As reported in the latest issue of <a href=“https://information.patentepi.org/issue-3-2021/progress-on-upc-ratification-in-germany.html”target=“_blank“>epi Information, the German Federal President recently signed the ratification law of both the UPC Agreement and the Protocol on Provisional Application (“PPA”), which was published in the Federal Law Gazette on 12 August 2021.

On 27 September 2021, Germany deposited its instrument of ratification of the PPA with the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union (“Council Secretariat”). For the PPA to enter into force, two more Signatory States of the UPC Agreement will need to express their consent to be bound by it (see Art 3(1) PPA). Slovenia is expected to do so shortly. Austria is another plausible candidate in this respect.
As published in the <a href=“https://www.uradni-list.si/_pdf/2021/Mp/m2021154.pdf”target=“_blank“>Slovenian Official Gazette on 24 September 2021, the Slovenian Government has issued a regulation ratifying the PPA. As a next step, Slovenia will need to deposit with the Council Secretariat the instrument to express its consent to be bound by the PPA, which is expected to be done soon (see <a href=“https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-12098-2021-INIT/en/pdf”target=“_blank“>here).

On 7 July 2021, a motion from the Austrian Federal Ministry of European and International Affairs to ratify the PPA was brought before the Nationalrat (lower Chamber of the Austrian Parliament). The Nationalrat assigned the motion to the parliamentary Committee on Research, Innovation and Digitalisation (Ausschuss für Forschung, Innovation und Digitalisierung). It is still pending with this committee. After the committee stage, the Nationalrat will need to approve the motion. Taking into account the further legislative procedure, Austria could be able to ratify the PPA as the thirteenth Signatory State before the end of Q1/2022.

The regularly updated overview on the ratification process, which has been compiled by the epi Litigation Committee, can be consulted here.