Bulgaria makes progress on UPC ratification
Bulgaria’s parliament, the National Assembly, has reportedly adopted a bill to ratify the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement’s Protocol on Provisional Application (PPA).
As reported by law firm Bristows, the bill will now be sent to the President for final approval. This requires the President to issue a decree for promulgation before the decree is published in the State Gazette.
Bulgaria has already ratified the UPC Agreement itself, along with 15 other countries. However, while the UPC has the 13 requisite ratifications to come into force, it is still on hold because Germany, whose ratification is mandatory along with the UK’s and France’s, has not ratified yet.
The UK and France have both ratified the UPC.
Meanwhile, in Romania, the government is aiming to ratify the UPC and the PPA by September this year, according to Bristows. Other than Germany, Romania is joined by Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Slovenia and Slovakia in not having ratified the UPC.
According to law firm HGF, the PPA allows some parts of the UPC Agreement to be applied provisionally, “which means that final decisions can be made on the practical set-up of the court, for example, the recruitment of judges. Provisional application also means the start of operation of the UPC’s formal governing bodies”.
In April, the UK ratified the UPC Agreement, leaving Germany as the only country whose ratification is mandatory. Ratification is on hold as the Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) is scheduled to hear a complaint over the UPC which questions the democratic accountability of the regulatory powers overseeing its operation and the independence of the judiciary.
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