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Luis-Alfonso Durán
Former Reporter General - AIPPI, Barcelona
The protection of mankind’s efforts to develop new knowledge will become increasingly important in the future and, therefore, it is essential that efforts are made to adapt the IP system to the challenges of the future.
In its Executive Summary on scenarios for the future, the EPO has identified a number of challenges. However, I would like to concentrate on the following:
- Increase in the number of patent applications filed and backlogs at Patent Offices;
- Increasing challenge from some NGOs concerning the social benefits of IP protection;
- Difficulties in developing harmonisation on IP standards due to the different degrees of development of different areas of the world.
It is in my view inevitable that in order to obtain improvements in the creation of knowledge, society needs to continue to provide mechanisms in order to provide protection for the creators of new knowledge and thus stimulate that creation and to obtain funds to ensure that those creators have the means to develop new knowledge.
It is well known that research and development require the best educated people and money to stimulate them to invest their time in these areas.
Accordingly, it is very important that society adapts and provides the appropriate means to guide the creation of new knowledge.
If society wishes to promote the creation of knowledge and provide adequate protection for this knowledge, it is obvious that the IP system will need to be sufficiently efficient so as to provide the mechanism to offer this protection.
This means that Patent Offices throughout the world will need to be prepared to efficiently handle more patent applications and within reasonable periods of time. There is no question of continuing to claim that Patent Offices cannot absorb the increasing amount of work that society is generating. In my view, it is not society that needs to adapt, but the Patent Offices, which need to be given adequate resources and means to provide the service they were created for, i.e. to grant good quality patents within reasonable periods of time and at a reasonable cost.
On the other hand, it is questionable to put all hope for the improvement of the patent system in a future harmonisation of the substantive rules on patents. The tensions between different areas of the world and the different degrees of development of some of these countries makes it very difficult for those less-developed countries to accept being forced to apply the same standards for patent protection in their developing countries as in those countries which are much more developed. This is especially so when those developed countries were not providing the same levels of protection as they now require of developing countries when they were at the same stage of development. Independently of the efforts that governments should make in order to explain the benefits of IP, developed countries should solve the problems of properly adapting their Patent Offices to handle with sufficient quality and speed the increasing demands of patent applications. Doing otherwise is a very poor example to the developing world. Therefore, in my view, greater efforts should be made to improve the management of Patent Offices so that they are more efficient in their core business, i.e. examining and granting good quality patents within reasonable times, recruiting and educating well-qualified people to perform these tasks and devoting all their energies to delivering a high quality product.
Improvements in cooperation between the main offices would also be very helpful in order to avoid duplicated work and to share the benefits of their own resources and thus avoid an increase in expense for users.
Finally, it is also very important to educate society in respect of the benefits of the protection of IP.
In the same way as during last century when Communism was challenging private property, pleading for collectivisation experienced in the former USSR and China, which ended with the collapse of the economies of both countries, the current movement pleading for free public use of innovation and creators’ rights would probably lead to discouraging the investments and efforts made to produce new inventions and new creations, putting at risk the progress of knowledge.
In addition to this explanatory exercise, it is also very important for the IP system to provide a proper balance between the rights of IP holders and third parties, to provide firm mechanisms in order to share the benefits of IP worldwide and to avoid the misuse of the IP system, which would support those who fight for its discredit.