As announced here the signing ceremony for the agreement on the unified patent court will take place on 19 February 2013 (on or around 2.15 Central European time).

Control your excitement readers!

The press release for the signing ceremony also suggests that we will be able to live stream the entire event (at this location).

Assuming the huge demand for the service doesn’t overload the Internet then IPcopy will be following the signing ceremony and providing an update once we know which member states have signed the document. We may also tweet about it on our twitter feed (@KeltieLLP).

As a quick refresher, the following 25 countries are taking part in the enhanced cooperation procedure that the unitary patent system is being developed under:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom

Most of these countries are expected to sign the agreement on Tuesday. However, a recent report suggests Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia may not sign. The same report also suggests that Italy (who are not part of the unitary patent enhanced cooperation club) may also sign. If Italy do sign this will not mean that unitary patents will cover Italy (unless they also sign up to the enhanced cooperation club as well) but that the unified court will extend to EP patents that have been validated in Italy. Good times.

See you all for the main event…..

Mark Richardson     18 February 2013