Today, at 2:05 am (CET), the European Patent Package passed another milestone towards coming into effect. The bills regarding the law amending the German patent law in respect to the European Patent Package and the law authorizing the German government to ratify the UPCA were finally read at the German Bundestag (see agenda item 42) and came to the vote.
Although we have not yet seen the official protocol of the 221st session (it will be ready at the end of the next session), we expect that the official reading to protocol, meaning that in fact nothing has been read, had not made the attending representatives sit up and vote "No".
The two bills will be now referred to the German Bundesrat in order to get their final approval. As there were no objections raised in the previous plenary session of the Bundesrat (plenary session of 10 February 2017), the approval in the next or the following plenary session taking place at the 31 March 2017 or 12 May 2017 (the respective agendas can be found here once published) can be expected. Lodging the German instrument of ratification with the registrar will be then up to the German Government alone.
