As part of a three-year project, the EPO interviewed over 100 key players in the fields of science, business, politics, ethics, economics and law, seeking their opinions on the key factors and challenges likely to have an impact on patenting and IP in the future. The result: four challenging, relevant and plausible scenarios describing four possible future worlds.
Business
The story of consolidation in the face of a system that has been so successful that it is collapsing under its own weight
Geopolitics
The story of conflict in the face of changing geopolitical balances and competing ambitions
Society
The story of erosion in the face of diminishing societal trust
Technology
The story of differentiation in the face of global systemic crises
The EPO Scenarios for the Future project was launched in 2004. It looks
at how the patent system might evolve over the next 15 to 20 years, in order to
get a clearer picture of the potential threats and opportunities.
Selected pages and
chapters from the Scenarios for the Future compendium as PDF files.
