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Patentbezogene Veranstaltungen
Jean-Pierre Contzen
Special Adviser to the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education of Portugal, Lisbon
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The Central Question
The Knowledge Based Society of the 21st Century relies largely on technological innovation and, upstream of innovation, on higher education, science, technology, for its global development How does the constant evolution of these four essential components of knowledge impact on the IP landscape as it will emerge in 2025? Do the four scenarios discussed in this Forum take into account such evolution?
About the scenarios
- A comprehensive analysis of the possible avenues for the future
- A clear reflection about the ambiguity of the current political, social and economic environment: a Society at the cross-roads of international competitiveness and social cohesion
BUT
- An overestimate of the rate of change in certain areas of this global environment, notably those related to knowledge
- The impression that the IP community reacts to change rather than anticipating it. The scenarios present in some way the fatalistic character of Emile Zola’s books
HENCE
- The temptation, taking the evolution of knowledge as guiding factor, of reconstructing alternative scenarios using elements originating from the proposed ones
Significant Knowledge Factors Impacting on the Future of IP
The avalanche of information
- “We are drowning in information but starved from knowledge” (John Naisbitt)
- New information stored in 2002 amounted to 5 Exabytes (10 exp 18), according to U.C. Berkeley, and growing at 30% a year. One prediction holds that the world’s stored information will be doubling every 11 hours by 2010
- Will IP institutions be able to cope with such avalanche? It will require new methods of knowledge management and the creation of a global network of specialized networks in these methods
The evolution of the innovation process
Three main features of such evolution impact on IP:
- Feature 1: The nature of the innovation output has changed. Innovation in products and processes is no longer the dominant case. Innovation in services, in systems, in organization has taken an increasing importance. It emphasizes the ability to innovate based on new combinations of existing knowledge
- Feature 2: while “traditional” innovation based on science and technology push remains important, demand-driven innovation becomes the dominant feature of a Society seeking more welfare. A better health situation, an adequate supply of food, water and energy, the protection of the environment, the development of leisure, constitute significant elements of such demand
- Feature 3: a new categories of countries appears on the innovation scene, the “innovation processors” relying on external knowledge to create products, processes and services satisfying an external demand
What is the repercussion of this evolution on IP?
- Innovation related to services and organization constitutes a more elusive target for patenting than the one leading to products and processes“
- Traditional” S&T push innovation will continue to require strong patent protection while demand-driven innovation mostly related to societal issues calls for new “softer” forms of protection based on consensus between users and producers
- “Innovation processors” will require a strong effective patent system for protecting their business
In conclusion: which outlook for 2025?
Using the evolution of knowledge as an input parameter, the future could correspond to the following cocktail of scenarios:
- A significant part of “Blue Skies”
- Some elements of “Market Rules” (rationalization of the system, mutual recognition)
- One component of “Whose Game” (role of new entrants)