The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to set up an EU patent system to reduce costs to companies, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Thursday.

Economic affairs minister Maxime Verhagen wants to form a break-away group of 10 countries to set up an EU patent process, if Spain and Italy continue to hold up the broader plans, the paper says.
Verhagen says the current EU patent system is 10 times as expensive as the US and Japan. ‘In these difficult economic times, every euro counts,’ he told the paper.
At the moment, for example, patents have to be translated into the language of every country in the EU where the patent is valid. Verhagen backs translation into English, French or German.