Can the UK stay in the UPC post-Brexit?

When the UK voted in June 2016 to leave the EU, many in the IP community concluded that the long-awaited unitary patent system, then due to start operating in the spring of 2017, would be the decision’s first victim. Article 89 of the Unified Patent Court Agreement requires 13 countries in total, of which France, Germany and the UK must be three, to have ratified the agreement before the UPC can take effect. It seemed highly unlikely that as part of its preparation to leave the EU as a whole, the UK would be in a rush to get a new, largely EU institution up and running.