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13 February 2014Patents

French parliament ratifies UPC deal

France’s National Assembly ratified the Unified Patent Court (UPC) deal on Thursday, leaving the President to give final approval.

The vote comes after the other assembly of the French parliament, the Senate, gave the UPC the green light in November.

France is one of three countries that must approve the UPC, which will hear disputes over Unitary Patents, in order for it to come into force.

The remaining mandatory participants – the UK and Germany – are yet to ratify the agreement. Austria is the only other country to ratify the UPC, which must be approved by a minimum of 13 countries.

Anne-Laure Bouzanquet, associate at Bristows LLP, watched the hearing live this morning, and told WIPR that politicians in the National Assembly adopted it “in less than four minutes”.

“It looks like it went quickly and not many MPs were attending,” she said. “It was quite empty.”

Bouzanquet, who said reports suggest that France wanted to be “one of the first” countries to ratify the UPC, welcomed its approval.

“It’s another step,” she said.

French President François Hollande must now sign the UPC agreement, but this process is expected to be a formality.

In December last year, European Patent Office president Benoît Battistelli praised the “steady” progress that the Unitary Patent and the UPC made in 2013, claiming that the first patent could be issued in 2015.

The UPC’s central division will be based in Paris.

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