We reported a few weeks ago that Italy had formally requested the European Commission to join the unitary patent. It appears from the European Commission website that Italy’s request was accepted and that it has now become the 26th member of the enhanced cooperation on unitary patent protection.
Italy was initially opposed to the Council of Europe’s decision to allow the enhanced cooperation and challenged it, along Spain, before the Court of Justice of the European Union in May 2011. However after the CJEU rejected Italy and Spain’s actions in April 2013, Italy decided to sign the Unified Patent Court but abstained from participating in the enhanced cooperation.
Here our post on Italy and Spain’s challenges of the Unitary Patent from 2011 to its resolution in 2015.
Italy (but also Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom) must now ratify the UPCA.