Survey: Should innovation be Europe's 2015 New Year's resolution?

One of the AmeriKat's New Year's resolutions:
 after blog more, sleep more. . .

With the fresh promise of a new year, many of us concoct plans to refresh, reinvent and re-energize our lives.  New Year's resolutions are personal innovations to improve upon the version of yourself that went before with the promise that you emerge better, stronger and healthier (see for example, Marilyn Monroe's 1955 resolutions here).  The intellectual property system is the same - designed to incentivize improvements of what went before or what has never even been. Innovation is always a buzzword in intellectual property law, for obvious reasons. You cannot (or should not, at least) have intellectual property without innovation and vice versa.

In 2008, the European Commission published its intellectual property strategy for Europe which recognized the need for strong IP rights in order to protect Europe's innovations so as to remain competitive.  The report stated:

"Protection of intellectual property is a key framework condition for innovation, stimulating R&D investment and transfer of knowledge from the laboratory to the marketplace. A clear regime for intellectual property rights is an essential condition for the single market and in making the "fifth freedom", the free movement of knowledge, a reality. This may also contribute as part of wider policy to finding solutions that could address global issues of increasing significance such as climate change, the ageing world population, and a possible energy crisis."

Six years later in March 2014, the Commission published the "Innovation Union Scoreboard 2014".  The annual Innovation Union Scoreboard compares the research and performance of the EU Member States, together with the relative strengths and weaknesses of their "innovation systems".  It provides a ranking based on individual indicators including education, scientific publications, R&D expenditure, Community trade marks, designs and PCT patent applications (including those in targeted industries, such as health and climate) and compares those Member States with other countries, including China and the US.  

Summary chart for Europe's innovation performance for 2014

In the 2014 Scoreboard, Denmark, Finland, Germany and Sweden came out as "Innovation Leaders" with innovation performance above the EU average.  The UK, Ireland, France and Luxembourg fell within the "Innovation followers" category with innovation above or close to that of the EU average.  Italy, Spain and Poland were ranked as "Moderate innovators".  Denmark, Austria, Germany and Sweden were in the top positions for "intellectual assets" which caters for IP rights including PCT application applications (the EU average was 3.9 PCT patent applications per billion GDP).  The report records that overall "the EU annual average growth rate of innovation performance reached 1.7% over 2006-2013 with all Member States improving their innovation performance."  

The US and South Korea, however, outperformed the EU both by 17% and by Japan by 13%.   The report continued:  

"The top innovation leaders US, Japan and South Korea are particularly dominating the EU in indicators capturing business activity as measured by R&D expenditures in the business sector, Public private co-publications and PCT patents but also in educational attainment as measured by the Share of population having completed tertiary education."

Although the report states that the US's lead is decreasing, it cites that the US continues to outperform the EU including by spending about 40% more on R&D and being more "successful in commercializing new technologies with 17% more Licence and patent revenues compared to the EU". 

With the sun rising on 2015, will
Europe prioritize innovation?

Although the 2015 Scoreboard has yet to be published, headlines like "Europe continues to fall behind in race to innovate" published by the Financial Times' before Christmas continued the theme of Europe's lagging performance in the innovation game.  It reports, according to WIPO, that European Patent Office's share of the 9% worldwide increase in patent filings fell to 5.8% (the lowest on record).  The increase in patent filings, however, has to be tempered with the fact that the patents subject of the applications have not been tested before the examiners or the courts.  As the Economist referred to in their 14 December 2014 article, the increase of filings in China, for example, could in fact be an innovation fiction.

With the promise of the new Unified Patent Court harmonizing the protection and enforcement of patents, Europe has taken some steps to improve upon what has been before (although there is of course debate on that point as well).  However, if the picture presented by the Commission and WIPO accurately represents the current status of innovation in Europe then improvements must be made - especially if this CNN opinion piece is to be believed.  

So far, a blank space.  But what
should be on Europe's 2015
New Year's Resolution Post-it?

But what should Europe's New Year's innovation or IP resolutions be?  To identify potential resolutions, one first must identify the frustrations or areas for improvement.  For example, should Europe's IP decision makers (politicians, EU legislators, judges, etc) improve their understanding of intellectual property?  Should the European Union's legislative process in relation to IP rights become more transparent with US-style public hearings and accountability?  Should immigration polices be crafted to reflect the need for innovation and creation of IP (see Sir Dyson's recent comment here)?  

So while our dear readers are sweating and toiling away at their personal New Year's Resolutions, the AmeriKat asks that readers take a beat to ponder what they think Europe's innovation or IP resolutions should be for 2015. Post your resolutions below or e-mail the Kat at theipkat@gmail.com.  The top resolutions will be subject to a follow-on post (and maybe more).