Counterparty has a production release which is entirely functional, and in active use (I think they just hit 100k transactions). In fact, it's usually responsible for 1-2% of Bitcoin's daily transaction volume. The contract feature was just announced today, but Counterparty's development is very quick, and the feature will be in production soon, judging by their pace thus far. The project went from starting out in January, to securing the Overstock deal in November. Compared to Ethereum's glacial pace, I'd not be surprised if these contracts are in production before Ethereum even enters beta.
