"[...] There is a very close link between IPR and the competitiveness of the EU economy. A proper, affordable IPR system is important to foster innovation. The European Inventor of the Year event offers an opportunity to highlight the achievements of European inventors. Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are core elements of the revised growth and jobs initative. On this occasion the following ongoing key Commission policies regarding IPR should be highlighted (see IP/558):
Innovation performance: Europe falls back vis-a-vis the US and Japan
The European Innovation Scoreboard 2005 provides empirical evidence that a lower level of patenting to a large extent accounts for the difference in innovation performance between EU countries and to the innovation gap between Europe, the US and Japan. However, leading Member States have a patenting activity similar to US one; they register twice as much EPO patents as the US, and the US registers twice as much USPTO patents as them. The available data clearly shows that patent indicators are highly correlated to countries global innovation performance. Countries doing well in terms of innovation performance also score high in patenting.
Figure: Innovation performance vs patenting activity
The available data clearly shows a strong correlation between a strong IPR-culture and good innovation performance.
Statistics on patent applications in 2005
In absolute numbers Germany has by far the highest number of patent applications with over 23 000 in 2005. France follows with 8 034 and The Netherlands with nearly 7 800, while the UK only put in 4 649 applications in 2005. [...]
Europe needs an effective IPT system
It is therefore demanding that the EU works upon its weaknesses and turns them into strengths. Even though the concrete scope and shape of IPR protection at the EU level is debateable, a sound and effective IPR framework should aim to contribute to:
Better economic performance, through giving firms the right incentives to make new inventions and the financial strength to continue to develop further innovation;
More efficient dissemination of new knowledge and ideas, through encouraging intellectual property owners to publish their ideas and place their inventions on the market;
Better products and services, through continuous product development, whilst at the same time safeguarding health and safety and environmental protection through conformity with market regulations.
Community framework for patents is lacking
Proposals have been made, including one on the Community Patent, and another on Computer Implemented Inventions. However, they have not yet received sufficient political support to ensure their adoption. The adoption of the Community patent would reduce the costs of patenting as well as increase legal security for European enterprises in general. This would certainly contribute to a better protection of intellectual property in Europe. The Commission has recently started a consultation exercise on the Community patent and possible alternatives, such as the development of a 'European Patent Litigation Agreement' or the closer harmonisation and mutual recognition of Member State patents.
Reinforcing the IPR-culture throughout Europe
More also needs to be done however on awareness raising and supporting enterprises, especially SMEs in valorising their intellectual property and using intellectual property rights. The Commission strives to encourage SMEs to valorise their intellectual property and make use of IPRs.
The Commission is undertaking a number of actions to assess what other support measures can be taken. An Expert Group will draft policy recommendations by end 2006, as part of the Commission's IPR-Initiative announced in the Industrial Policy Communication of autumn 2005. The recommendations will focus on how barriers to the use of IPR can be removed and how the relation between IPR and innovation can be strengthened. A specific TrendChart Workshop will validate these policy recommendations.
The policy recommendations will have three building blocks.
1. A special statistical report on IPR usage will further analyse how companies use IPR in different sectors, building upon the results of the European Innovation Scoreboard. This report is foreseen for May 2006.
2. A report on barriers to the effective use of IPR will be produced by the Commission's Europe INNOVA. Sectoral Innovation Panels by June 2006. This Report will identify the reasons for companies using or not using intellectual property rights and possible policy measures in response.
3. A benchmarking study on publicly-funded IPR support services was launched in January 2006. It will identify all existing regional and national support measures for companies in the field of IPR, assess their efficiency and identify good practices.
Based on these elements, it will be possible to identify where companies experience difficulties, whether government measures address these issues and propose points for improvement.
Furthermore, a number of specific IPR initiatives in support of enterprises will be launched under PRO INNO Europe, which supports trans-national cooperation, including the European Design Prize and the project led by the European Patent Office on 'training the trainers' in IPR support services.
PROTON Europe is a network of technology transfer offices linked to Public Research Organisations and Universities. It is supported by the EC under the Gate2Growth initiative. A significant amount of top research with current or potential commercial relevance is undertaken in universities and research institutions in Europe. The objective of PROTON is to boost the commercial uptake of publicly funded R&D throughout Europe by further developing the professional skills of their technology interface structures with industry.
The IPR Helpdesk provides free-of-charge basic guidance on intellectual property issues to the stakeholders. Its main achievements are a range of multilingual tools: website, newsletter, topic documents. It also manages a fast-reply helpline for individual queries.
Enforcing IPR in the fight against counterfeiting and product piracy
Counterfeiting is one of the major problems that the Commission has to cope with. From 2000 to 2005, customs seizures have increased by 1000%, while counterfeiting is no longer limited only to fashion and design articles, but is extended to medicines and electrical equipment. The enforcement of intellectual property rights in third countries is more than ever critical. The Commissions actions include:
Close cooperation between Member States and the Commission must go on to continuously improve our custom control system.
Speedy and reliable information exchange between authorities from different Member States remains an important issue.
Intensive cooperation between right-holders and customs authorities
Activities are ongoing under the Commission's action plan for an efficient customs response to counterfeiting and piracy.
The Commission has just proposed to introduce criminal law provisions to combat intellectual property offences .
[...]"
It appears as if the EU Commission really intends to do something about the practical correlation between IP, innovation and economic well-being.
"[...] There is a long tradition of cooperation between the Commission and the EPO. Both in the field of strengthening the European IP-culture and in enforcement, joint initiatives have been launched. [...]"
Argh. If this is anything like the "2005 innovation index", this is pretty mich invalid, as for that, patents were essentially used as a largish contributing metric for "innovation": i.e. the more patents, the higher the "innovation index" *in the first place*, whether directly or by counting patenting costs as R&D expenditure. Correlation? What a surprise.
And correlation is not causation at the best of times!
Trouble is, politicians can sometimes seem easily convinced by all sorts of pseudostatistical bullshittery if it's a pretty graph, and think nothing of stealing our computing liberty. Each patent granted is theft of liberty from us all.
"The bible is the word of god. God says in the bible that the bible is the word of God. Therefore the bible is the word of god." QED. Not.
MEMO/06/181
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