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First afternoon (18 April 2007)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday at the European Patent Forum that the European patent system “must be improved” to make it fit for the challenges of globalisation.
To keep Europe’s technological edge in light of increasing competition from the world’s emerging economies, the European patent system, in a nutshell, had to be made “easier, more affordable and more legally secure,” Merkel said in her keynote address at the Forum, a two-day IP conference in Munich.
Jointly organised by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Commission, the forum brings together politicians, industry leaders and some of the most renowned experts from the IP world, and looks at > possible ways the patent system could develop in the next two decades.
Merkel, whose government holds the rotating European Union presidency and chairs the Group of Eight (G8) of industrialised nations, said Europe needed to quickly update its IP landscape because the “rest of the world doesn’t sleep.”
Merkel urged the European IP community to “quickly establish” the long-debated Community Patent, which would allow individuals and companies to obtain a common patent for the whole EU.
Merkel said the London Agreement, which aims to reduce the translation costs involved in obtaining a patent, had to be “implemented quickly”.
“I will fight for that,” Merkel said, adding that “half-hearted compromises” are not acceptable. The agreement was signed in 2000 by ten countries, but is yet to be ratified by all, a dire fact given the high translation costs, Merkel said.
“Of the total costs of a patent, 40 per cent is connected to translations. That’s enormous,” she said.
Merkel added that the current quality of published patents has to be upheld even though the European Patent Office is faced with an increasing number of applications. A strong European patent system, Merkel said, is key to securing the prosperity of Europe’s technologically-oriented, export-driven economy.
The German chancellor has politically backed up her demands and made IP one of the key topics for her EU and G8 presidencies. Merkel, in the name of Germany and the other 26 EU member states, congratulated the EPO on its 30th birthday. Those thirty years had proved an “outstanding success story,” she said, before wrapping up her remarks by congratulating outgoing EPO President Alain Pompidou on his achievements.
Ahead of Merkel’s speech, the conference participants discussed the findings of the EPO's “Scenarios for the Future” project in four different break-out sessions. This three-year project looked at possible ways the patent system could develop until 2025.