Enabling Innovation Policies
Innovation ecosystems are complex. They involve many actors, which must be motivated to invest in risky new ventures with no guarantee of success. They rest on a foundation of enabling policies in areas including intellectual property, trade, investment, rule of law, and education. A productive innovation ecosystem provides legal certainty and predictability for innovators. IP protection and enforcement frameworks are important in this regard. Patent rules should be business-model neutral and aimed at supporting innovation over the long-term. Trade secret protection, which can help innovators to manage valuable, confidential information, is particularly relevant for SMEs and individual inventors. Rules that enable public and private sector entities to share knowledge and jointly commercialize R&D can ensure that breakthroughs don’t sit on the shelf. Through Innovation Council, members weigh in on the range of policies that can advance innovation across sectors and regions.
The Long Wait for Innovation: The Global Patent Pendency Problem
Mark Schultz and Kevin Madigan write in their informative, and still very pertinent, 2016 paper about patent pendency issues and the reasons for, and possible solutions to, the problem. Many patent offices simply lack sufficient examiners to handle the increasing volume of patent applications, and there are deficiencies in both processes and infrastructure. One possible solution is increasing the number and qualification of examiners; many countries are already prioritizing the hiring of new examiners to tackle patent delay and backlog problems. Work sharing is another option. Patents are increasingly filed in multiple jurisdictions, and this duplication creates the opportunity to share work or expedite applications that have already been granted by recognized jurisdictions. Yet another proposed solution is the removal of obstacles to final grants. Some countries insert additional procedures and reviews in between application and grant: India, for example, has a redundant pre-grant opposition procedure, while Brazil subjects pharmaceutical patent applications to double review by both its patent office and its drug regulator. Such procedures should be re-considered in light of the substantial cost of the delays they introduce, and, where they are redundant, they should be eliminated.
Gender Profiles in UK Patenting: An analysis of female inventorship
This analysis by the UKIPO shows that, in the 1980s, women represented less than 4% of inventors on GB patent applications, but that this has steadily risen to over 8% in recent years. Although absolute numbers remain relatively low, the last 10 years have seen a 16% increase in the proportion of female inventors. The overall proportion of patents involving a female inventor (either working alone or as part of a team) has more than tripled, from 4% in 1980 to over 12% in 2015; at the same time, the last 10 years have seen the proportion of individual female inventors’ plateau at around 3.75%. The number of all-female teams has increased fivefold since 1980, but the absolute numbers are still very low, with only 0.33% of patents coming from all-female teams in 2015. Although historical analysis reveals ever-increasing levels of female patenting, the growth rate is slow and the absolute numbers are still very low. The world of patenting remains male-dominated, and, even in 2015, there is a clear gender disparity: 88% of all GB patent applications come from male individuals or all-male teams, and almost 96% teams that submit applications include at least one man.
2017 Women’s Participation in Patenting: An Analysis of PCT Applications Originating in Canada
This report from 2017, by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, examines international patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), in order to determine the share of inventors who are women and the share of PCT applications with at least one woman inventor. The report studies PCT applications by Canadian applicants, and finds that Canada has seen little change in the share of inventors who are women in the last 15 years, even as the world share continues to grow.
Brazil shortens term of thousands of pharma and medical device patents
In the middle of May, the Brazilian Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling, deciding that a controversial provision of the country’s patent law guaranteeing a minimum 10-year, post-issuance term (Article 40) was unconstitutional. The court opted to apply the ruling to all current pharmaceutical and medical device patents (regardless of the specific products they relate to) that have benefited from the provisions of Article 40, as well as all patents with pending nullity actions (filed by 7th April 2021). The judgment also applies to pending applications and new filings (regardless of the length of delay they have faced).
Building a Culture of Trade Secret Protection
Craig Moss, Executive Vice President of Ethisphere, explains in this video that protecting your company’s ‘crown jewels’—namely, intellectual property—effectively needs to be more than simply signing non-disclosure agreements and marking documents as confidential. This is especially true today, since more and more companies are going through a digital transformation.
Identifying the gender of PCT inventors
This paper, by Gema Lax Martinez, Julio Raffo and Kaori Saito, analyzes the gender of inventors in international patent applications. The authors compile a worldwide gender-name dictionary, which includes 6.2 million names for 182 different countries, which they use to discern the gender of PCT inventors. The results of the researchers suggest that there is a gender imbalance in PCT applications, but that the proportion of women inventors is improving over time. They also find that the rates of women’s participation differ substantially across countries, technological fields and sectors.
Challenges for Women Inventors and Innovators in Using the IP System
Jozefina Cutura explains that, despite marked improvements in gender equality, gender gaps persist in patenting and in women’s ability to commercialize their creative and innovative output. Under its Policy on Gender Equality, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) must integrate a gender perspective into its policies and programs. Given the gender disparities in patenting, WIPO is undertaking a project on increasing the role of women in innovation and entrepreneurship, which aims, in particular, to encourage women in developing countries to use the intellectual property (IP) system.
How much COVID-19 vaccine will be produced this year?
Simon J. Evenett and Matt Linley have prepared fresh forecasts for COVID-19 vaccine production through the end of the year.
Currently there is a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines. The 1.73 billion doses of vaccine produced to date pale in comparison to the 10.82 billion doses needed to inoculate 75% of the world’s population aged 5 or over. The shortage is particularly acute in many developing countries that have been unable to secure vaccine supplies, raising legitimate concerns about the equitable access. The development of new variants among the uninoculated—which then spread across borders—is a reminder that a global perspective on vaccine production and distribution is required. According to the authors, by the end of 2021, total COVID-19 vaccine production is forecast to exceed levels needed to reach global herd immunity.
The Global Trade Secrets Protection Index (TSPI)
Mark Schultz and co-author Douglas Lippoldt created the Trade Secret Protection Index (TSPI). The TSPI is a data-driven, objective index that measures the strength of trade secret protection in 39 countries from 1985 to 2010. It was originally created for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in two ground-breaking studies, which IIPR is working to update and expand upon, so more information and analysis will be available shortly about the state of TS protection in different countries.
The first study, Approaches to Protection of Undisclosed Information (Trade Secrets), explains the importance of trade secret law and establishes the TSPI, explaining its methodology and results.
The second study, Uncovering Trade Secrets – An Empirical Assessment of Economic Implications of Protection for Undisclosed Data, uses the TSPI to assess the economic impact of trade secret law. It finds a positive relationship between the strength of trade secret laws and several important economic outcomes related to trade and innovation.
Waiving IP Rights During Times of COVID: A ‘False Good Idea’
For Hans Sauers, it is clear that the COVID pandemic is being used as a cover narrative to argue for a quantum leap in the debate over IP and public health. In other words, taking away or denying patent rights is, according to some, no longer enough. Affirmative expropriation and the forced transfer of industrial property is taking its place on the NGO agenda – at least with respect to vaccine originator companies from North America and Western Europe. It is unclear why, but no nongovernmental group is demanding similar access to Russian, Chinese, or Indian COVID vaccine technology, even though there is no convincing reason to be dismissive of these products. Expectations that manufacturers around the world could, due to reduced IP protections, “freely” and independently make versions of existing COVID-19 vaccines within months are simply unrealistic. Indeed, there is no such thing as a “generic vaccine,” as some IP waiver proponents expect. Any resulting products would inevitably differ in quality, safety, and efficacy, and would not be approvable without running new rounds of expensive and time-consuming clinical trials. This inefficiency would be exacerbated by the diversion of scarce raw materials away from up-and-running manufacturers to inexperienced, first-time producers, who would produce at lower efficiency (at least initially) and, indeed, often in regions that lack biologics-manufacturing infrastructure. Such supply diversions, and the resulting inefficiencies, would only make it harder to maintain current global vaccine production, and worldwide COVID vaccine output would decline, not grow.
Cato Institute: Why Big Tech Likes Weak IP, by Jonathan Barnett
In his new book, Innovators, Firms, and Markets: The Organizational Logic of Intellectual Property, John Barnett draws on an intellectual toolbox consisting of economic theory, economic and legal history, and political economy, to show that significant reductions in the strength of patent protection are likely to have unwelcome consequences for innovation and competition policy. Counterintuitively, weakening patents can raise entry barriers and shelter incumbents by disadvantaging firms that are rich in ideas but poor in the capital and expertise required to convert ideas into commercially viable products and services. The result is an innovation ecosystem in which research and development and its commercialization tend to take place within integrated financing, production, and distribution environments that can only be feasibly maintained by a small handful of large firms. By contrast, robust IP protections enable innovation ecosystems that support a variety of more‐ and less‐integrated structures for funding and extracting value from R&D investments.
IP strategy is a global business strategy
Learn how to protect your intellectual property (IP) domestically and internationally at Phoenix (PHX) Startup Week. Join Wayne Stacy, Director of the USPTO’s Silicon Valley Regional Office, and Ruth Soberanes, International Trade Specialist for the U.S. Commercial Services – Phoenix, in a discussion of why and how startups should consider protecting their intellectual property (IP), what to expect when selling domestically vs. internationally, and U.S. government resources available to assist startups going global. PHX Startup Week is a five-day online event providing education, connection, and support to entrepreneurs in collaboration with StartupAZ Foundation. Registration is required, but the USPTO does not charge any fees associated with registration.