Patent right is a legal right, which grants the obligee the right in a specific country and a specific period of time to prevent the third party from using it for commercial purposes without authorization. European patent is a single European patent granting procedure with a single application through the European Patent Convention, which establishes a unified system of substantive patent law, aiming at providing easier, cheaper and more powerful protection for inventions of contracting States.
European patents cover 38 contracting States:
The 38 Parties are Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco and the Netherlands.