How the European patent system and patent information contributes to growth and innovation in Europe

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1 How the European patent system and patent information contributes to growth and innovation in Europe Christian Soltmann Patent Information Promotion 4 July 2015

2 Patent system: Balance of interests Benefits for patent holder Controlling commercialisation of protected technology Benefits for public Inspiring further innovation Giving patent holders time to recoup their development costs Preventing duplication of R&D in industry and universities Helping to identify new partners Making the latest technological knowledge available to the public Europäisches Patentamt 2

3 Patent information helps to 1 prevent duplications 2 - find out what exists 3 - check out existing patents 4 - avoid infringement 5 - keep track of others 6 - identify partners 7 - spot trends Europäisches Patentamt 3

4 Patent information supports product development and innovation State of the art Risk of infringement Market analysis State of the art Risk of infringement State of the art Market analysis State of the art Risk of infringement Market analysis State of the art Risk of infringement State of the art State of the art State of the art State of the art Patent analyses

5 How to use patent information in daily routine Management Technical information Other information Research & development Patent analysis Patent data IP management, patent and legal divsion Legal information Business information Data Data visualisation Data processing Europäisches Patentamt 5

6 Mission of the European Patent Office As the patent office for Europe, the European Patent Office support innovation, competitiveness and economic growth across Europe through a commitment to high quality and efficient services delivered under the European Patent Convention. Europäisches Patentamt 6

7 Today, 38 member states and 2 extension states Belgium Germany France Luxembourg Netherlands Switzerland United Kingdom Sweden Italy Austria Liechtenstein Greece Spain Denmark Monaco Portugal Ireland Finland Cyprus Turkey Bulgaria Czech Republic Estonia Slovakia Slovenia Hungary Romania Poland Iceland Lithuania Latvia Malta Croatia Norway Former Yugoslav Rep. Macedonia San Marino Albania Serbia European patent applications and patents can also be extended at the applicant's request to Bosnia- Herzegovina and Montenegro. Europäisches Patentamt 7

8 Patent information products of the European Patent Office Raw Data products (Subscription) Open Patent Services (Free; Fair use policy) More expert users / and more support Specialised products for patent information users ASIAN Patent Information (Subscription + Free) Machine Translation (Free) Espacenet (Free) EP Register (Free) Publication Server (Free) Europäisches Patentamt 8

9 Searching technical information: Espacenet More than 90 million patent documents (applications, granted patents, search reports, non-patent literature) Data from 90 patent authorities worldwide Data from 1836 to today Source of technical information Available free-of-charge via the internet at Europäisches Patentamt 9

10 Espacenet: User-friendly interfaces Europäisches Patentamt 10

11 Espacenet: Patent Translate Reducing the language barrier Makes access to prior art in different languages easier (member states of the European Patent Convention and other important languages) Europäisches Patentamt 11

12 European Patent Register: Legal and procedural information Free-of-charge access to: legal status information procedural information for patent applications with the European Patent Office information about the maintenance of granted European patents Secured access Register alert monitoring tool 12/8 Europäisches Patentamt 12

13 European Patent Register: Dossier view Europäisches Patentamt 13

14 European Patent Register: Federated Register and Global Dossier Federated Register: access to register data of national patent offices for European patents: table view links to online register interfaces of the national patent offices Global Dossier: file inspection for patent applications from leading patent offices worldwide (China, Europe, Japan, Korea, U.S.A.) automatic machine translation accessible in European Patent Register and in Espacenet Europäisches Patentamt 14

15 Patent intelligence Approach different from 'traditional' types of patent searches 'Traditional' patent searches Patent intelligence Examples Main target audience Purpose Quantity of documents novelty/prior art search freedom-to-operate search technology or legal status monitoring patent attorneys IP experts preparing patent application assess risk of patent infringement rather individual patent documents or small groups of documents market analysis technology scouting IP managers R&D managers upper management PATLIB centres, technology transfer offices addressing strategy-related issues, e.g. - understanding technology trends - identifying potential partners - understanding strategy of competitors usually large quantities of documents Europäisches Patentamt 15

16 Patent intelligence: Procedure Basic search Statistical analysis Processing results patent classes search concepts applicants countries of residence [...] further analyses/ processing visualisation reporting Report Executive Summary Group 1 Group 2 Europäisches Patentamt 16

17 PATSTAT product line European Patent Register for PATSTAT EPO Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) EPO worldwide legal status database for PATSTAT Unique basis for conducting sophisticated statistical analyses of patent data Bibliographic data on more than 90 million patent documents of leading industrialized and developing countries Can be supplemented by: legal event data of patent documents in many countries worldwide European patent register data: Bibliographic, legal and procedural information on published European patent applications and on published EURO-PCT applications Europäisches Patentamt 17

18 PATSTAT product line: Typical fields of application European Patent Register for PATSTAT EPO Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) EPO worldwide legal status database for PATSTAT Question IP management Management Question important for... Research & development Technology transfer offices, PATLIB centres Which are the most important competitors? Which technologies are used in the technical field/sector? How has technical field changed over time? How has technical focus of competitors changed over time? Who may be interested in my technology? Where are the most promising markets for my technology? How has patent strategy of my competitors changed over time? In which technical fields may I also use/sell my technology? Europäisches Patentamt 18

19 Patent Intelligence: Example co-application behaviour Technical field: Arrangements for programme control Europäisches Patentamt 19

20 Patent Intelligence: Example renewable energies: Patent activity Geothermal energy Hydro energy Energy from sea Solar thermal energy Photovoltaic energy Thermal- PV hybrids Wind energy Europäisches Patentamt 20

21 Case study: EPO-OHIM study Europäisches Patentamt 21

22 Example: Linking patent data, trademark data and design data: Joint project of European Patent Office and the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM): purpose: to examine economic characteristics of IPintensive industries in Europe methodology: determine which industries use IP rights more than others determine employment and value added generated in those industries determine weight of IP-intensive industries in Europe Europäisches Patentamt 22

23 Example: Linking patent data, trademark data and design data: methodological challenge: matching EPO's Worldwide Patent Statistical Database (PATSTAT) and OHIM's register database with commercial ORBIS database and EUROSTAT data novel and sophisticated data-matching technique was needed, including extensive data preparation/name harmonisation Europäisches Patentamt 23

24 Example: Linking patent data, trademark data and design data: Linking patent data, trademark data and design data to determine IP intensive industries: Concordance schema Patent applications published and patents granted by EPO PATSTAT- ORBIS concordance OHIM-ORBIS concordance Community trademarks and registered community designs EPO's PATSTAT database Industry classification and other information for more than 20 million European companies NACE code OHIM's register database EUROSTAT data ORBIS database Europäisches Patentamt 24

25 Example: Linking patent data, trademark data and design data: Results include: about half of European industries can be considered IPintensive total number of IP-dependent jobs: about 77 million (35 per cent of all jobs) IP-intensive industries pay significantly higher wages than other industries value added per employee is higher in IP-intensive industries than elsewhere in European economy further information available at: studies/index_en.htm Europäisches Patentamt

26 Thank you for your attention! Christian Soltmann European Patent Office Directorate Patent Information Promotion Rennweg 12 A-1030 Vienna Europäisches Patentamt 26