The Legal Affairs Committee and Council Presidency negotiators reached an agreement on plans for an EU unitary patent to cut costs for firms and boost the EU's competitiveness. The deal still needs to be approved by Parliament as a whole and by the Council.

Parliament's rapporteurs struck a political agreement with the Polish Presidency of the Council on the three proposals, unitary patent, language regime and unified patent court that form the "EU patent package". The negotiations started on the 22 November, once the Legal Affairs Committee gave green light approved a mandate to open formal negotiations. The deal still needs to approved by Parliament as a whole and the 25 EU Member States involved.

The first piece of legislation in the package is a regulation setting up a unitary patent protection system. The agreed text largely reflects the Commission proposal, and in particular a provision allowing inventors from countries currently outside the procedure to apply for an EU patent. With the deal on the proposal, MEPs succeeded in adapting the proposed regime to small firms' needs.

With regard to the second proposal, the proposed regime for translating EU patents, it would make them available in German, English and French, although applications could be submitted in any EU language. Translation costs from a language other than the three official ones would be compensated. However, Italy and Spain complained to the European Court of Justice in June 2011 for this regime.

Member States are currently negotiating an international agreement to create a unified patent court so as to reduce costs and uncertainty as to the law due to differing national interpretations. MEPs assure that with this piece of legislation the litigation system will be more efficient, by giving it a decentralised structure, clear procedural rules and judges selected for their competence.