Italy has finally decided to join in on EU’s Unitary Patent by expressing its wish to participate in the enhanced cooperation mechanism for the creation of a Unitary Patent protection on 7 July 2015.
Italy’s decision is welcomed by other signatory states, and the advantages of this are necessary and useful for Italian companies, which will be able to compete against their European opponents. Italy will still need to ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement and complete additional formalities in order to be fully part of the enhanced cooperation process. However, Italy confirmed that this decision does not affect its position in defending the importance of the Italian language in the European institutions.
In the meantime, Italy has already announced its willingness to open a local division of the Unified Patent Court to be located in Milan.
