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Today I was able to gain access to EU Commission Document COM(210) 790 final - kudos to @EUpexian on Twitter. The paper is titled Proposal for a Council Decision authorising enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection. It cumulates in a proposal for a Council decision as follows:

Article 1

Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom are hereby authorised to establish enhanced cooperation between themselves in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection, by applying the relevant provisions of the Treaties.

Article 2

This Decision shall enter into force on the day of its adoption.

Done at Brussels,

For the Council

The President

Well, this appears to be quite brief a statement. In its explanatory section, the Document reads as follows:

I just spotted the above-pictured Tweet of Mr Vincent Van Quickenborne, Minister for enterprise and streamlining policy of Belgium.

The linked Document says:

"After more than 40 years breakthrough in realizing EU Patent supporters put their own unified EU patent patent system

Brussels, December 10, 2010 - In the European Council Competitiveness, today 11 Member States have expressed their agreement to cooperate for the realization of EU patent. The 11 countries - including France, Germany and Britain - like to implement as soon as possible a unified patent system so that companies can get at a reasonable cost an adequate protection of their knowledge available in all participating countries. [...]

At the European Council, 11 countries have today a request sent the European Commission on the basis of compromise proposals Belgian Presidency of the proceedings of the enhanced cooperation to get started. The Lisbon Treaty provides that if in a given case unanimity can not be found within a reasonable period of at least nine Member States may request addressed to the Commission for a private arrangement between themselves to work. The other Member States can always join later. This procedure is used only very exceptionally. Other examples were the Shengen Convention and the Euro, which does not once all Member States have participated, but afterwards many candidates joined. The Commission will now prepare a proposal for the treaty enhanced cooperation to formalize"

More details will follow.