Viva Technology 2024
The European Patent Office was present at VivaTech 2024, Europe’s #1 Startup and Tech Event. The EPO’s Observatory on Patents and Technology organised the following events and activities at VivaTech.
The EPO supports inventors, startups, and university researchers by granting high-quality patents. But we do so much more for innovators! Our free Deep Tech Finder connects potential investors with over 8 400 investment-ready European startups with EPO patent applications. Our public patent database Espacenet has over 150 million technical documents to help with R&D and to find partners, licensees and investors. We administer the new Unitary Patent system that is reducing costs and complexity for protecting inventions in Europe.
Workshop on how & why patents can help startups:
The EPO led a 2-hour workshop that was visited by more than 150 start-ups and entrepreneurs and included three sessions: “Targeting success - how patents boost your growth”, “Turning a profit - transforming ideas into assets “ and “Inspiring Peers (IP): meet & mingle to learn more”. António Campinos, the EPO President was joined in stage by Anna Panagopoulou Director for ERA & Innovation, DG Research and Innovation, from the European Commission and EPO experts to discuss issues like the importance of IP for start-ups and funding, the Unitary Patent, or the use of patents for AI and software-related inventions. European Inventor Award alumni Joachim Fiedler, founder of Fidlock, and Eimear O’Carroll, co-founder of Lios, also shared their experience on patenting as a startup with other VivaTech attendees.
INPI-EPO collaboration:
The EPO joined VivaTech in partnership with the French Patent Office (INPI) and participated in several joint initiatives. The EPO was partner for INPI’s booth and also co-presented a workshop on the benefits of the Unitary Patent (UP) to expand to the European market. Following first year since the implementation of the UP, SMEs and startups represent over 30% of the total number of European proprietors with a UP, 10% more than the data for all European patents.
Likewise, the EPO was also part of the jury members of the annual INPI Pitch Award, celebrated at VivaTech. Technology expert and examiner Wiebke Hinrichs was part of the selection panel that evaluated several start-ups specialised in sport-tech.
Participation at the official programme of VivaTech in the panel “Scaling Into New Markets: A How-To”:
The EPO’s Chief Patent Research and Policy Office, Gilles Requena, took part in a panel joined by start-up founders and VC funders to discuss how scaling up can be successful for European start-ups. They discussed issues like market fragmentation in Europe or lack of a common capital market, highlighted in our last EIB-EPO joint study “Financing and commercialisation of cleantech innovation”, or the benefits of the Unitary Patent for startups
Presentation of the Deep Tech Finder at the “Investor’s Lounge”:
VivaTech hosts an Investors Lounge for the +3,000 VC investors that are present every year at the conference. Yann Ménière, EPO Chief Economist, was invited to this exclusive space to present the Deep Tech Finder to the investors, as a valuable tool to find thousands of European investment-ready start-ups, By blending EPO’s own databases on patent information with commercial databases relating to financial information of thousands of startups, the DTF helps potential investors and business partners to find out what inventions are being developed in specific technology fields and assess their levels of protection by European patents. The DTF covers now over has 8 400 startups having filed a European application in 51 different technological fields.
