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URL: Location: Home→About us→EPO events →Archive→2007→European Patent Forum and European Inventor of the Year→European Patent Forum 2007→News from the European Patent Forum→First morning
First morning (18 April 2007)
The European Patent Forum kicked off Wednesday morning with a comprehensive look at how globalisation and other challenges might shape the intellectual property landscape over the next two decades.
Professor Alain Pompidou, President of the European Patent Office (EPO), said the IP landscape had to gear up for a “rapid and robust adaptation to a changing environment," during his opening remarks. The EPO, Pompidou added, was “committed to reinventing itself so as to remain one of the key players in innovation in Europe.”
The forum presented the results of the EPO's “Scenarios for the Future,” a three-year project that looked at possible ways how the patent system could develop until 2025, for the first time. The study’s results weren’t presented in dull words and complex charts, but as a modern multimedia show.
Against a musical backdrop of electronic beats and video clips, two beauties in high heels, a choir reminiscent of Greek drama, human robots and an opera singer presented four scenarios on how the global patent system could develop over the next two decades.
The scenarios, each dominated by a different driver (business, geo-politics, society or technology), play out very differently. The 2025 results range from the abolishment of patent system to a future where patent systems collaborate for society’s greater good.
The four scenarios sparked a controversial morning debate with four speakers from the scientific, economic and political realm.
Jean-Pierre Contzen, a special adviser to the Portuguese science ministry, urged the world’s patent offices to “work together” to meet the challenges presented in the four scenarios.
IBM Board Chairman Hans-Ulrich Maerki noted that his company had realised the importance of publishing IP information, and Claude Rubinowicz, a senior official at the French Treasury, said that governments are not yet “aware of the IP they own and the importance of managing their IP assets.”
Martin Khor, director of the Geneva-based Third World Network, criticised the Western patent systems for what he felt was a decrease in patent quality and an increase in abuse of the system for business interests. At the same time, he congratulated the EPO on “Scenarios for the Future,” saying the office was “really thinking outside its own box.”