EU patent deal - but Italy and Spain opt out

British companies will benefit to the tune of £20 million a year from an EU-wide single patent system to protect their ideas and innovations, the UK government said yesterday.

A deal that has eluded EU ministers for decades was finally done in Luxembourg, paving the way for a cheaper, more efficient one-stop shop for patent registration in 25 of the 27 countries.

However, Italy and Spain have opted out - because the deal includes agreement on using just English, French and German for Europe-wide patent applications to streamline the system.

At the moment UK businesses seeking to patent their ideas across Europe deal with national authorities separately, in all applicable national tongues.

Part of the single patent regime - which has taken more than 40 years to resolve - is to enable a single European patent requiring paperwork in just the three key languages.

Yesterday, at talks between EU ministers in Luxembourg, Italy and Spain opposed the exclusion of their languages, Spain pointing out that Spanish was more widely used than either French or German.

Both countries then opted out of the system, meaning patent applications in those two countries will still need to go through national patent registration requirements in Rome and Madrid.

For the rest of the EU, one single application will be required, saving UK business an estimated 20m a year in reduced patent costs.