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Dr. Biserka Strel – Introductory speech
Dear guests and colleagues,
It is my great honour and pleasure to greet you here today on my behalf and on behalf of the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office. The event that has taken place in Ljubljana in the last few days is the result of close cooperation between our Office, the European Patent Office and the European Commission. We are grateful in particular to the European Patent Office, to Professor Alain Pampidou, who supported the idea of organising the European Patent Forum and the award ceremony for the 2008 European Inventor of the Year in Ljubljana, and to Mrs Alison Brimelow and her team who carried out the extremely demanding organisational work. I would also like to take the opportunity to point out that this is the first time that an event of this kind is taking place outside Munich or Brussels, a practice I am convinced will continue in future, too.
The Slovenian Intellectual Property Office has been endeavouring for the last four years to strengthen its role by searching for a new niche position within the emerging European network, which has been also confirmed by the recently-signed four-year action plan on cooperation with the European Patent Office. It should also be emphasised that Slovenia was the first of the Member States of the European Patent Organisation to sign up for this cooperation. The action plan comprises six major projects that also include partner institutions of the Slovenian innovation area. The implementation of the planned projects will certainly provide important support when establishing an efficient and internationally comparable infrastructure for the field of intellectual property rights and will at the same time constitute an important factor in promoting innovation in Slovenian business.
Of course, the role of the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office during the Slovenian EU Presidency should not be overlooked either in today's event, given that the Slovenian Presidency has set further progress on the demanding and extensive patent dossier - i.e. the Community Patent and patent jurisdiction of the European Union - as one of its priority tasks. The Presidency programme was drawn up on the basis of discussions to date held in the EU Council, the achievements of the German and Portugal Presidencies and consultations with the European Commission and France, the next Presidency country. Thus we are continuing discussions on the Community Patent and a single judicial system for settling patent disputes, preparing the key legislative texts and seeking further solutions.
Our aim is to achieve the broadest possible consensus between the EU Member States on the outstanding issues of the technical requirements of a future Community system that should be, above all, efficient, cheaper, economical and user-friendly.
In the early stages of shaping the future system, we are therefore already paying special attention to the active inclusion of users. The real possibility of achieving a successful conclusion to the patent dossier after more than 40 years represents important added value for a European economy based on knowledge and innovations, in particular for small and medium-sized companies.
We are also honoured that the ceremony for this year's most prestigious awards for inventions will take place here in Ljubljana. Such awards are an important incentive to innovators for their constant contribution to the technical development of Europe and its competitiveness, and the association with the two-day European patent forum clearly gives added value and, at the same time, an important message to the public.
Lastly, I would like to wish all our foreign guests a pleasant stay in Ljubljana and in Slovenia and all the participants in today's event a successful continuation of the planned programme.
Thank you for your attention.