The Digital Economy in 2025: A European Industrial Property Strategy for the 21st Century

Author: EIF online (24.March.2009)

On Wednesday 18 March 2009, the EIF organized a breakfast meeting about a European Industrial Property Strategy for the 21st century. Speakers were Margot Froehlinger, Director of DG Internal Market D (Knowledge-Based Economy) from the European Commission, and David Benjamin, co-Chairman of the Steering Committee of BASCAP (Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy).

Both speakers talked about IPR as the backbone of the digital economy of the future. If we look at the big picture, already more than 10% of the European GDP comes from IPR (all IPR produced in Europe taken together). If Europe wants to keep its place in the knowledge based economy then it will be vital to maintain innovation and stimulate investments in research and R&D in Europe. If we don’t do this we risk leaving innovation to other economic players such as the US or Asia.

In that respect the quality of our IPR system is going to be vital, as is the relationship between IPR and competition policy. Secondly, Europe is much behind in terms of awareness building about IPR in universities and ensuring that SME’s understand the true workings of IPR. On yet another level Europe needs to tackle the issue of Internet law enforcement (and not only Europe given the global nature of the network). Enforcement is a fight of the mind in the sense that it is about changing the mindset of people to respect IPR and to refrain from stealing IPR. In relation to that, a European IPR Observatory will be launched in April which will be a collaboration between the European Commission and Industry. Its aim is to improve data collection about IPR use and abuse and to create a deeper understanding of the economic impact of IPR. Finally, European businesses and consumers must feel that it is safe to do business over the internet, hence the EU must effectively tackle counterfeiting and piracy.

It is not an easy task to accomplish all of the above. The Internet has started out as a free haven for communication and this has brought many positive changes, but, as David Benjamin of BASCAP pointed out, internet lawlessness makes true competition on the Internet impossible and would stifle growth of the Internet based economy. One needs guidelines that will truly be enforced, and work towards a ‘rule of law’ for the Internet economy. Education about IPR will likely be the only way to truly create a paradigm shift about the value of IPR. Chinese kids in school from the age of 5 get educated about what IPR is and how it is important to respect it. In Europe this is not happening (yet?). The real struggle as such seems to win the battle in the mind of the people.

For more information on this event click here