History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Mali, Franc
University of Ljubljana
Faculty for Social Sciences
Slovenia - franc.mali@uni-lj.si
Some Issues of Intellectual Property Rights in the Context of the New European Innovation Policy
The changing regime of intellectual property regimes in the context of the new EU innovation policy will be the main topic of my discussion. The key policy actors in Europe are increasingly aware that the regulation of intellectual property rights is one of the most crucial elements in transition of Europe towards a knowledge-based society. After Lisbon summit in 2000 EU strongly endeavors to achieve two strategic goals: to harmonize and unify patent systems among member states and to find the balance between private and public interests in the matters connected with the intellectual property rights. As is demonstrated by different sorts of indicators published in the newest European statistical overviews (Key Figures 2003-2004, Innovation Scoreboard 2003, etc.), EU Member and Candidate countries lost of competitiveness with USA first of all in regard to the share of patents in ICT and biotechnology. In the paper, it will be given a basic overview of arguments why Europe falls behind America concerning the share and growth rates of biotech and ICT patents. One of them is that the US intellectual property rights regime has longer tradition concerning its opening to computer software and to living entities. Europe deals with this complex topic in the last few years. On the ground of detailed content analysis of European Commission's Communications and other official and expert documents in the last ten years, there will be given the short explanation what are the common characteristics of new innovation policy in regards to ICT and biotech patents in Europe. Some tentative conclusions will be given, what are the main reasons that the Central and Eastern European EU Candidate countries express very low patenting propensity in biotechnology and ICT; in spite of their relative good scientific position in classical natural scientific fields (chemistry, physics, biology). Here, the results of the own empirical investigations (interviews with scientists) will be also used.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006