The European Patent Office is an independent supranational organization and has no connection with the European Union. No separate "EU Patent Office" will be set up as part of the introduction of the EU patent. Instead, the existing European Patent Office will be used (for example, see Article 9 of EU Regulation 1257/2012). This is a big difference from the registration and granting of EU Community Trade Marks and EU Community Designs. A separate EU authority – OHIM in Alicante, Spain – was created for this purpose.
When making the application, noa decision has to be made as to whether you want an "EU patent" or whether you want to validate the patent at a national level in the traditional way later. Only after the patent has been granted, you have to check where and how you wish to validate the patent. One of these options will be "EU." If you choose this option, you will obtain an "EU patent." If this is not what you want, you do not check "EU," but rather the individual States, as was previously the case. Then you will obtain a tradiconventional European patent, which is only validated in the corresponding States. It is also possible to combine "EU" and "individual States." If, for example, Spain continues not to participate in the EU patent, it will be possible to check both "EU" and "Spain" – and of course non-EU States such as "Switzerland."
"EU" validation will be possible for all pending patent applications, i.e. also for patent applications, which were submitted before the Agreement came into force. European patents that have already been granted cannot, however, be "converted" into an EU patent.