Brussels, 24/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - A Community patent will soon make life easier for budding inventors. At an extraordinary session on Monday 27 June, the Competitiveness Council will hold a debate with a view to adopting two general guidelines for the implementation of reinforced cooperation for creating protection by unitary patent. The first guideline lays down all the details for obtaining a patent and its legal effects, the second the conditions for its translation. The draft regulation will then be put to the Council and the European Parliament. This will make it possible for any business or individual to protect inventions using a single European patent valid in 25 member states, which will “make innovation less expensive and easier”, as Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for the Single Market and Services, put it, when the two legislative proposals were presented by the European Commission on Wednesday 13 April. But it is also an issue of reducing costs, by around 80% compared to the current patent system. Use of the enhanced cooperation procedure was approved on Tuesday 15 February in a vote at the Parliament, due to the absence of unanimous agreement on the language regime (trilingual mechanism: German, English and French) for the translation of patents. Only Spain and Italy continue to have misgivings. The two countries brought proceedings before the Court of the EU on Monday 30 May to have the decision reached in March, which authorised the use of enhanced cooperation, overturned. (J.K./transl.fl)