Conference 3 – 4 November
Intellectual property (IP) helps to promote investment in new and improved products and processes, and allows innovators to make a return on their investment. It also plays an important role in the dissemination and use of the knowledge and innovations contained for example in patent documents and registered designs. This enables further technological developments, allows creative industries to grow and flourish and fosters the creation and development of the market for ideas. The increasing importance of IP for economic performance at the micro and macro levels, its centrality to the knowledge economy and its importance for global value chains are changing how market actors use IP and the way policy-makers perceive the role of IP systems and IP rights.
In an effort to better balance private and social benefits, and thus contribute to both economic growth and the welfare of societies, IP right systems worldwide have in recent years been at the centre of business and policy discussions, and have been undergoing a number of changes.
However, the ability of companies to take strategic decisions allowing them to perform and compete, and the possibility to design policies aimed at shaping IP systems and aligning them with societal goals, require robust and reliable evidence. In this respect IP data represent a unique source of information that can be used to inform a wide range of policy- and business-relevant issues, including: science and technology developments, R&D and innovation, entrepreneurship and enterprise dynamics, branding and reputation, and economic development and growth. IP data also reveal important facts about how IP systems themselves are performing, and thus help to better shape them.
This year’s IP Statistics for Decision Makers (IPSDM) conference will take place in Vienna, Austria, to celebrate the beginning of the 10th year of PATSTAT, the EPO Worldwide Patent Statistical Database. PATSTAT was launched on 23 and 24 October 2006 in Vienna, at one of the first IPSDM conferences.
More at: European Patent office
