There is a very interesting interview on IP Watch with Mr. Konstantinos Karachalios of the European Patent Office (EPO) discussing some of its concerns about the future of the intellectual property system done by EPO by launching a major study of the "critical issues" ahead. The first part of the study, the result of 70 interviews with key players worldwide, will be published shortly.
"[...] KARACHALIOS: We have identified already four basic driving forces on a very consensual broad basis: People from very different nations, different positions within the office, very different backgrounds - we all agreed on these four major driving forces which are more continental shelves moving, drifting, pressing one another.
The first is, broadly speaking, society. The deeper, long term expectations, fears, attitudes, how this underground landscape may influence the IP system. It might sound trivial, but it is not, because there has been a perception that the IP system is something for specific circles, experts and lawyers. However, since IP has entered the political arena, wider societal forces inevitably demand a greater role and influence.
There are political movements, non-governmental organisations [NGOs], wishing to play a role - already playing a role. That is very apparent. As the IP history of the past 100 years shows, a big problem is that IP is one of the rare, highly polarised fields, where it is apparently very difficult to build any kind of consensus, even to gather commonly agreed empirical data to serve as a basis for an objective discussion. It is a huge task for everybody rejecting extremist positions and seeking to create win-win situations.
The second continental plate is technology, emerging new fields and its pace, its acceleration, what is called 'technology avalanche.' To give you one example: The whole 20th century is equivalent to only 16 years of technological progress measured by the year 2000, i.e., technologically seen, the whole century could be compressed within only 16 years, with developments concentrated more and more towards its end. Taking into account this accelerating effect, could you imagine how many such time units we and our children will experience and must cope with during the 21st century? There will apparently be more than 100, but can you imagine how many? Well, if you simply extrapolate the current trend, assuming no large-scale and long-term disasters, it may be that we will have to accommodate a technological progress equivalent to 25,000 years, based on year 2000 technology, within two generations. Even if you take 'only' 1,000 years, we will be faced with challenges similar to the ones that are still facing most populations in Africa, which were catapulted from the iron or Stone Age into modernity within two to three generations.
[...]
The third challenge is linked to the general economic environment, including the innovation process. Whose interests is this system serving and where is the right balance? There is an ongoing general discussion about knowledge as public good and knowledge as an exclusive private property right. This is a never-ending question, one will never find the perfect equilibrium, it will remain a matter of political negotiation. Another aspect is the rapidly changing economic and production conditions within the globalization mega-trend.
Then we identified a fourth driving force, geopolitics, the working group of which I am coordinating. The question is how does geopolitics play into the agendas. How a change within a major geopolitical player, let's say the US, may influence the rest of the world. That means that you have to capture what is going on now in the micro-scale within the societies and policymaking levels not only of the current, but also the future major players, and also try to imagine the qualitative transformation of their IP agendas as they change in the years to come. This cannot be done by linearly extrapolating current agendas and weighing them with probable geopolitical future weight, you need to get the 'turn', the possible metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly.
So these are the four driving forces which of course are not separated, they play strongly into each other. Having this in mind, we have set up four groups to look more systematically into each one of the mentioned main challenges, intending to make a synthesis at the next phase of the project. For each topic we will hold small workshops including also external people. [...]"
This four-fold approach appears to be a quite broad attempt to tackle present problems of the system of IP law but, I think, an appropriate one.
"[...] KARACHALIOS: There is a widespread perception that the system is coming under stress. In the US it is very apparent, there is a lot of very vivid debate there, and this [spills] also over to Europe. There are two main symptoms: One is the increasing backlog, the patent offices face increased difficulties to cope with the numbers of applications. Apparently the system has been very attractive and successful, so an increasing number of people wish to use it. But this poses questions. Is the experienced geometrical growth sustainable and if yes, how can we cope with it? To give you an example: based on the situation and the predictions at its creation period, the EPO was conceived to become in the long term an organisation with some 2,500 persons, dealing with a maximum of 40,000 applications a year. Not even 30 years after, we are 6,500 persons and receive 200,000 applications a year, trends upwards. You see here that predictions and extrapolations based on solid experience and common sense do not always deliver realistic results. [...]"
What will be the consequences to be drawn?
[UPDATE 2006-05-18] If you click on the link to the interview as provided hereinabove, you'll notice a page indicating "Our apologies, this interview has been taken down." I dont't know the specific reasons. An abbreviated version (approx. 1/4 of the original length) is now available there.
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Dipl.-Phys. Axel H Horns is Patentanwalt (German Patent Attorney),
European Patent Attorney as well as European Trade Mark Attorney. In particular, he is Member of:
a very interesting interview on 
