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Shining a light on patents and innovation
5. September 2008
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EPO Controller Ciarán McGinley said that patent statistics have an important role to play in addressing the issue of global backlogs at a conference in Vienna this week.
Ciarán McGinley during the opening
Speaking at the Conference on Patent Statistics for Decision Makers on Wednesday, he said that better statistics could help to combat the phenomenon known as "global patent warming", which has seen the number of pending patent applications skyrocket worldwide.
He identified three multipliers - globalisation, pendency and woolly boundaries - that are contributing to the situation, which he said leads to "uncertainty and risk".
Mr McGinley said that the transparency provided by patent statistics was one of the key factors in combating "global patent warming". He added that statistics are also helpful in assessing the quality of patent applications, and could therefore contribute towards "raising the bar".
In his opening address, Dominique Guellec, Senior Economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which organised the conference with the EPO, highlighted the importance of statistics for economic analysis, saying that as the only reliable source of innovation-related statistics that can be broken down by geographical location or industry, they provide "precious information".
Around 150 participants travelled to Vienna for the conference
The two-day conference took place at Vienna's Renaissance hotel on 3 and 4 September and was attended by around 150 delegates from Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia, Egypt and Brazil. Co-organisers included the DIME Network of Excellence, Eurostat, the Japan Patent Office, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the National Science Foundation and the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Presentations from the conference will be available on the website soon.
Further information
- EPO events: Patent Statistics for Decision Makers