Some 400 IP professionals from across the globe are gathering in Warsaw this week to look at the latest developments in patent data and how it can be leveraged for business decisions.
Opening the EPO’s 24th Patent Information Conference, Poland’s Deputy Economy Minister Grażyna Henclewska said: “We strongly and resolutely rely on an innovationbased development model. Hence it is important to build a culture of innovation, to shape the attitude of entrepreneurs in favour of innovation, and to include society in the process of creative thinking and creating innovation. Currently, that is one of our most important challenges.”
Speaking about the importance of patent data, Ms Henclewska said: “Countries that do not provide for appropriate information on the legal certainty of patent documents risk losing inward investment. Not only is access to the data important, but also knowledge of its quality and completeness.”
In his welcome address to the conference, EPO President Benoît Battistelli said that patent information was becoming increasingly relevant, not only for the established IP community, but also for business, government and NGOs to inform their economic and political decisionmaking.
“In today’s globalised knowledge economy, the need for patent information is greater than ever,” said Mr Battistelli. “The EPO is committed to playing its part to ensure users have the best data in the most accessible way so they can take the best decisions and make optimal use of the patent system.”
He highlighted the increasingly global nature of patent information as one of the drivers of the EPO’s patent information strategy, citing recent progress on machine translation, Cooperative Patent Classification, the Global Dossier, and near complete coverage for patent data from most major Asian countries. The EPO hosts the world’s largest free online patent data collection, with nearly 90 million documents from some 90 patent offices from all over the world.
The 2014 Patent Information Conference (46 November) is being organised by the EPO in cooperation with the Polish Patent Office. The conference is the annual meeting point for Europe’s patent search professionals, and the leading event of its kind in Europe. The delegates, who include representatives of industry from across Europe, are discussing how patent information can support innovation and help businesses based on innovation to succeed.
This year’s programme addresses a number of topics, including patent analysis and patent visualisation. It also looks at patent ownership and how to track down who owns patents, future trends in patent searching, and legal status data from Asia. The exhibition, which is sold out, includes all the main providers of commercial patent data services.