Patent Policy Statement

The Special Interest Group (SIG) on Patent Policy has issued on August 31, 2007 a position paper with 8 practical recommendations for improving the patent system in Europe in order to facilitate knowledge transfer from public research.

For the reasons explained in the attached position paper, the patent system is a very important tool of knowledge transfer from public research and the relatively lower performance of European universities and research organisations in converting discoveries into innovation, when compared to the USA with approximately the same total research budget, is attributable to a large extent to the features of the patent system in Europe.

These recommendations include the introduction of a grace period and of a provisional patent system in the European Patent Convention. The National Partner Associations have been consulted and have contributed to these proposals. The members of ProTon Europe are encouraged to call the attention of their political representatives of regional, national or European level in order to progress these proposals.


Composition of the SIG on Patent Policy

Chair: Gilles Capart; Eoin O’Neil
Experts: Athina Ikonomidou; Bill Lindsay; Bo Heiden; Friedrich Rueckert; José Luis de Miguel; Pierre Brisson; Santiago Romo and the members of the Board


Patent Policy Statement