OPENING OF THE SYMPOSIUM AND WELCOMING ADDRESS
António CAMPINOS
President of the Portuguese Industrial Property Office
Minister, President of the Supreme Court of Justice, President of the European Patent Office, Director of the Centre for Judicial Studies, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends,
Without wishing to be long-winded, because we do have a lot of work ahead, my first words are naturally aimed at greeting all those who are present at this session and I wish also to convey my deepest satisfaction that Portugal is able to host an event such as this, which is of the utmost importance at both national and European level.
I would also like to thank the President of the Supreme Court of Justice, who has allowed us to meet in this magnificent building. We will shortly be celebrating the anniversary of the building of the square we see outside and we are able from this building to enjoy its beauty and symbolism. We have recently seen its renovation, which now evokes in the thousands of Portuguese and foreigners who traverse the square a sense of rediscovery of the river and the City of the Seven Hills.
I would also like to thank the director of the Centre of Judicial Studies and the distinguished magistrate Eurico José Marques dos Reis for the great support given to us in organising this event. There has been long-standing collaboration between us over the years and I would also like to thank all of my team at the National Industrial Property Institute, in particular Luísa Araújo.
Let me also thank our speakers, all those who have honoured us with their participation and agreed to be here over the next three days, when we will be learning many new things, exchanging experiences and knowledge, that will greatly enrich the debate around patent protection in Europe.
In a knowledge-based and globalised economy, we have great challenges ahead in terms of the competitiveness of our companies and of course this means we need more creativity, more innovation, in order to gain a competitive edge. In this context, industrial property is of fundamental importance, allowing, through trademarks and patents, the protection of investments of companies in R&D. This creates the necessary conditions for technological development, enhancing the competitiveness of our economies and promoting innovation.
The decisive role of industrial property is clear when we look at how many companies seek to use patents as a form of protection of their intellectual capital and of their inventions, and we can see this in our country. As you have just heard the Minister say, we have seen the scenario change vastly from a number of years ago.
Five years ago we had about 200 patent applications per annum, which left us lagging behind the rest of Europe, and since then we've seen great progress, with an annual increase in applications of around 40%.
It is also with great satisfaction that we see that in 2009, for the very first time, we left behind the less than 10 European patent applications per one million inhabitants bracket, and we are now in the group of countries between 10 and 50 applications. This was actually mentioned in the European Innovation Scoreboard in 2009. Portugal went up the ranking of innovative countries and we are now the third-largest in terms of growth in the EU of 27. This new position results, among others factors, from the increase in the number of patent applications in Portugal, which is a very satisfactory 16.4%.
For these results it is also important to stress the significant increase in R&D by companies and the number of scientific publications, quoted internationally, demonstrating our innovative potential.
According to data from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the number of scientific articles of international relevance published in Portugal has grown significantly, representing the biggest European increase over the last ten years. It is now 72% of the European average. In 2008, for example, 12 000 scientific publications were published in this country, that is 30 per day, and since 2004 the number of publications per one million inhabitants has increased by 68%, twice as fast as in the other European countries, where the average was 35%. This increase and improvement in R&D are very encouraging. Expenditure and investment have increased in both the public and private sectors, as shown by the GDP figures, but particularly in industry, where investment has tripled since 2005. Portugal was therefore the European country with the largest growth in total R&D expenditure between 2005 and 2007. We have gone up three positions in the European rankings, and are now in 15th place.
At a micro level, I would also highlight the greater accessibility, simplicity and certainty of the Portuguese patent system. We have adopted a new, simplified and electronic approach, the result of a great deal of hard work by the government and the National Industrial Property Institute.
Given the importance of intellectual property nowadays, a lot has been done to focus on knowledge and the information society and, of course, on the fight against IPR infringement throughout the world, to protect the rights of companies and consumers.
For IPR enforcement, it is crucial to have a system that functions properly. It is especially important when we know that an industrial property system is only attractive and credible if the public authorities - police and courts - have the capacity to create mechanisms to ensure the protection of the rights of companies.
Improvement of the solutions provided by the legal system in order to protect industrial property rights is, in my opinion, fundamental.
Firstly, we have to focus on constant, continuous training of all those involved, particularly of our judges, promoting events such as these, at which we can exchange our experiences and deepen our understanding of complex topics like those we will be discussing.
And that is why, during the next three days, we will be debating highly technical topics that courts have to deal with on a daily basis.
I'm thinking, for example, of what we will be talking about here tomorrow, i.e. the exclusion from patentability of medical methods required to preserve or restore the health and physical integrity or well-being of people. This topic reflects the importance of the issues which arise in connection with industrial property.
We see here the tension between, on one hand, the need to ensure monopolies over inventions that stimulate technological and scientific development, and, on the other hand, the need, for ethical, moral or public health reasons, to protect patients against patents that might somehow prevent the use of certain methods as part of medical treatment or disease prevention.This means that judges have to reflect deeply on a number of issues. There may be some doubt as to what the invention contains. We have to understand whether we are talking about curative methods or surgical methods of treatment or merely cosmetic methods. I'm sure a lot of these issues have come up in the appeals you have dealt with.
Another good example of the diverse topics which can come before the courts is the issue of the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. This, as we know, requires uniform treatment throughout our different countries. It is a hot topic that presents great challenges. We know that over the last few years patent applications in this area have grown exponentially, and that is not surprising, because of course computers are used in all areas of life today and have seen vertiginous progress.
Closely linked to the issue of the training of judges is the need for greater specialisation. As we have just heard the Minister say, this is actually one of the priorities of the Portuguese government and it has always been the position defended by the National Industrial Property Institute.
Now given the technical depth of the issues that have to be dealt with, I am sure that we all need to focus on greater specialisation. There are many reasons, I believe, for creating specialised courts for industrial property disputes in the area of patents and I am sure that all those in this room have great experience.
I think that we need to avoid in future, the fragmentation of decisions in different courts. This will make our judicial system speedier. And of course we also need to draw closer to our users, and this is now possible thanks to new information technology.
We all know that we need to speed up the settlement of disputes that involve industrial property rights. Although a lot of work has been done by our trade tribunals, the nature and the volume of cases these courts must deal with make it humanly impossible to ensure the timely management of these cases.
Portugal has already taken a first step: our Council of Ministers has approved the creation of a new intellectual property court, and now, Minister, President of the Supreme Court of Justice, we keenly await the start of this project and we are sure that this will be another great challenge, in addition to all the others thrown up by the evolution of industrial property.
At European level, the future of the patent system requires a more competitive European patent.
As you all know, right now European industry is at a disadvantage, because a European patent costs 11 times more than an American patent and 13 times more than a Japanese patent.
We cannot allow this to go on. We need to increase the competitiveness of the European patent, reducing costs associated with protection across European countries, and this means reducing the costs associated with the translation and validation of patents by simplifying the protection regime. That would then give companies a new way of obtaining a single, unitary EU patent that is valid in all 27 member states.
The lack of an EU patent system makes the protection system in Europe a fragmentary one, and a very complex one, and one that is unsafe and costly for companies. This fragmentation harms the competitiveness of our industries because it stops companies, especially SMEs, from benefiting from unitary patent protection which would allow greater simplification and a reduction of costs.
And that is why we have always defended the creation of a system that will allow for a single centralised procedure and a single unitary patent valid throughout the EU and co-existing with the national and European systems in force. That is why we support the Commission's proposal.
In addition to creating this Community patent system, Portugal also wants to see the creation of a unified jurisdiction in Europe. We need a Europe-wide litigation-settlement system that will allow us to protect the future EU patent.
This new system will allow us to prevent litigation across a number of different countries and will reduce costs especially for SMEs, thus guaranteeing greater legal certainty. We will see less forum-shopping and fewer divergent decisions handed down by different national courts in respect of the same patent.
This is one of the greatest challenges industrial property faces in Europe, and although this is a dossier we have been dealing with for the last 41 years – that is as old as I am! - I am sure that the latest developments give us reason for greater optimism.
Another challenge, Minister, is the London Agreement, which, as we all know, will help to reduce the costs linked to the translation of patents.
We all know that translation requirements increase costs significantly in Europe. Patent validation means hiring in each country, specialised professionals who are able to translate highly technical documents.
According to EPO data, these costs make it much more difficult for patents to be recognised. We are talking about 40% extra costs, and that penalises users of the patent system in Europe, especially SMEs, leading them to reduce their investment in R&D. Economic agents should not be spending their money on translating patents, they should be channelling it into R&D and innovation. I am sure that these developments will make things much easier for us all.
Now, I have to say that taking part in this symposium means a great deal to me, because this is my farewell to the world of patents. Like the adventurous Portuguese seafarers who embarked on a journey of discovery of new worlds, I too am going on to discover other areas of industrial property, but in the full knowledge that I have learned a lot and that a great deal has happened in the field of patents and innovation.
See you soon. Enjoy your work. Thank you.