Upon Austria depositing on Tuesday the instrument of ratification, the PAP-Protocol (Protocol to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court on provisional application) entered into force on Wednesday. As a result, the Unified Patent Court is officially born as an international organization. Over the next months (8 months according to the UPC Preparatory Committee's predictions), the preparatory works to make the Court fully-operational will be carried out, including the recruitment and formation of the judges. The first case before the UPC may then have place in early autumn this year.