The European Patent Organisation, http://www.epo.org is a public international organisation created in 1977 by its contracting states to grant patents in Europe under the European Patent Convention (EPC) of 1973.
They also provide Espacenet http://worldwide.espacenet.com/ , which contains the worlds largest patent database with free access to more than 80 million patent documents worldwide, including information about inventions and technical developments from 1836 to today.