European Commission formalises Italy’s accession to the unitary patent “The participation of Italy in enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection authorised by Decision 2011/167/EU is confirmed”. Article 1 of the European Commission’s decision 2015/1753 confirming the entry into force of the unitary patent’s regulations in Italy could not be clearer. The benefits deriving from the new regulatory and judicial system have been officially extended to one of the Europe’s most important markets. In fact, Italy is the fourth European State registering the highest number of patents and has now become the 26th European State participating in this enhanced cooperation. Its participation has been positively welcomed by the European Commission and the European Patent Office principally because the addition of an important market to the new patent system will reinforce the attractiveness of the European market. The new European body of laws on the unitary patent – which is composed of the EU no. 1257/2012 implementing said enhanced cooperation, the EU Regulation no. 1260/2012 regarding the applicable translation arrangements, and the international agreement of February 19, 2013 on a Unified Patent Court – came into force in Italy on October 2, 2015: SME in particular will derive several benefits from these rules. The European unitary patent will be granted after a sole registration procedure valid for all 26 States participating in the enhanced cooperation. Furthermore, the costs to obtain the registration of a patent will be significantly lowered, increasing the competitiveness of the European market accordingly. Moreover, the legal certainty will be clearly strengthened since, on one side, there will be only one body of laws binding the inventors and, on the other side, the patent’s validity will be judged by a sole judicial authority, provoking the end of opposed and parallel judgments on a single patent by different courts of the European States.