Estonia has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement, with the formal act being deposited on 1 August 2017.

How many countries have ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement so far?

The list of ratifications of the Unified Patent Court Agreement  now includes 13 states: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden as well as Estonia.

What difference does Estonia’s ratification make?

Not much. True, 13 is a meaningful number for the Unified Patent Court because the Unified Patent Court Agreement can only enter into force after ratification by a minimum of 13 signatory states.

However Germany, France and the United Kingdom must mandatorily be among those 13 states. France has ratified the agreement, but the United Kingdom and Germany have not.

An appeal against Germany’s ratification law is pending before the Constitutional Court, and British ratification has been on hold since the Brexit referendum, because according to the Unified Patent Court Agreement only European Union member states can be part of the Unified Patent Court.

Owing to the delays, the Unified Patent Court Preparatory Committee recently postponed the Unified Patent Court’s kick-off to the first half of 2018.

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