By Jo Best, 25 April 2007 11:54
NEWS
Europe's execs are increasingly attempting to protect their intellectual property (IP), a new report has found.
The white paper from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), sponsored by Qualcomm, itself known as an IP powerhouse in telecoms, has found executives in knowledge companies are turning towards intellectual property more and more to bolster revenues.
According to the research, 53 per cent of companies surveyed said IP rights (IPR) are critical to their business model, up from 35 per cent two years ago.
Telecoms is among the sectors increasingly coming to depend on IPR to earn money - currently earning just five per cent of its cash from IPR. The leader in the field is life sciences, with 18 per cent.
The report said: "Respondents in telecommunications are also more likely than those in other industries to feel their company does not generate adequate value from its IP - nearly two-thirds feel this way in comparison to 43 per cent of respondents in life sciences and healthcare."
In the future, around half of the companies quizzed by the EIU believe better IP management is needed to generate return and a similar figure said it is necessary to protect R&D investments.
A third of companies also cite the need to defend against emerging market competitors becoming more aggressive in their efforts to copy third-party technology.
The report said: "Emerging markets throw fear into the hearts of any firm's manager of its IP portfolio. Patent infringement from emerging market competitors tops the list of threats to IP cited by survey respondents. A large share of respondents also point to unauthorised action by employees as another source of damage to IP."
China is now the most feared in terms of countries where execs believe an IP breach might occur. However, it's worth noting that many of those quizzed had never had to use their patent lawyers in anger: 57 per cent of respondents said they had not experienced a patent dispute.
Comments
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1. Roger Huffadine
Don't rely on the UK Patent office to do anything useful for you. I know of two people who have been badly let down by the searches done by the UK Patent office - me {£4000 down the tubes} 'cos they screwed up the initial search and someone who approached a friend of mine trying to licence an idea to him when my friend already had a 10 year old patent for exactly the same concept.
Innovation - yup I know how it works - bin there - done that - patent it - hell no. Unless you have gzillons to protect your patent in the courts then it isn't worth the paper its written on - that is if someone else dosn't already have "prior art"
2. Hugo Lueders
This is a timely article as we celebrate World Intellectual Property Day on the 26th of April. But piracy and patent infringement is not the only problem facing inventors and innovators. Threats to the patent system and its protections make inventors feel insecure. To quote German Federal Minister of Justice Brigitte Zypries: “Inventions are the raw material of the knowledge society. In Europe we urgently need more innovations that are designed to meet the challenges of the future. This requires that we provide more patent protection.” Fortunately, this is a sentiment that seems to be shared by European Commissioner Charlie McCreevy as expressed in the recent “Communication on Enhancing the European Patent System.”