EU unitary patent and Unified Patent Court - software patents wiki (en.swpat.org)

The European Union patent with unitary effect and the Unified Patent Court are two parts of an EU proposal which takes competence for patent cases away from the national courts and transfers it to a new pro-patent court with no independent appeal system for its rulings. One expected outcome is that software patents may become enforceable throughout the European Union. The stated aim is to unify Europe's patent systems.

The proposal also involves creating a single patent which would be valid in many EU member states, without translation. This proposal took over from the Community Patent since the Lisbon Treaty and is often called the EU patent or the unitary patent.

As of August 2012, Spain and Italy continue to reject the proposals and the EU intends thus to make them binding in only the other 25 member states.

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