The European Union approves the unique European patent

The European ministers of Industry have agreed to create a single European patent, a work project of 30 years and which would reinforce the competitiveness of European firms.

The unique patent project, which would facilitate the protection of inventions in the EU and significantly reduce costs, needs to receive the approval of the European Parliament.

Currently, a patent must be obtained and then validated for each of the 27 Member States.

The upcoming administrative simplifications will help to reduce the costs of a patent submission. A unitary patent will not cost during the transition period, only 6.500 Euro. This cost will be reduced below 5.000 Euro after the transition period.

Spain and Italy have refused to participate, to protest the fact that patents are not translated than three languages of the Union: German, English and French.

The Cypriot EU presidency proposes the fact that the patent applications can be filed in any European language and then be translated into one of the three languages. Once registered, the patents will be retranslated in the 23 EU languages.

The first European patent may be filed "in 2014,"according to the European Commission.