Recent Articles

Intellectual Property: Political Excesses - Or: Let Schumpeter's Creative Destruction Do Its Work

Axel H. Horns
June 18, 2010 17:26

It is a well-known fact that in particular numerous newspaper publishing companies are currently suffering from an increasing downturn of their classic paper-based business model.Their long-established but obviously now deprecated business model had been centered around the exploitation of the...

Ms Neelie Kroes Defending Open Standards

Axel H. Horns
June 17, 2010 16:18

Ms Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda On June 10, 2010, Ms Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, gave an address at the Open Forum Europe 2010 Summit on 'Openness at the heart of the EU Digital Agenda' in Brussels.Exactly two...

Did Mr Gordon Brown Love Secret Patents?

Axel H. Horns
June 17, 2010 13:49

Secrecy Orders per 10.000 patents (Source: New Scientist) According to a report in New Scientist, UK patents are being declared state secrets more than three times as often as those filed in the US.In particular, as can be seen in the above chart published on the New Scientist website, there...

European Patent Organisation Discussing Fee Reform and Sustainable Financing (II)

Axel H. Horns
June 14, 2010 11:01

As already indicated in my earlier posting, in September and October 2009 three regional workshops on Fee Reform and Sustainable Financing took place between the European Patent Office (EPO) and the EPC Member States. Representatives of 27 Member States attended the regional workshops. The EPO...

European Patent Organisation Discussing Fee Reform and Sustainable Financing (I)

Axel H. Horns
June 11, 2010 14:45

At the 117thmeeting the Administrative Council in March 2009, the European Patent Office (EPO) had launched a debate on sustainable financing and fee reform. This debate emerged from the process of Strategic Renewal launched jointly in May 2007 by both the current and previous Presidents of the...

The EU Patent and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union - TFEU

Axel H. Horns
June 10, 2010 17:36

At last some transparency has come into the quarrels over the question as to whether or not the proposals for creating a European and Community Patents Court (PC) having jurisdiction not only over EU Patents on the territory of the EU but also with regard to non-EU countries being signatory to the...

Mr Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie on 'The Quality Factor in Patent Systems'

Axel H. Horns
June 08, 2010 17:39

Mr Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie is a Senior Research Fellow at Bruegel and Professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (SBS-EM), where he holds the Solvay S.A. Chair of Innovation. He joined Bruegel in December 2007. Mr Bruno ...

Proceedings Of The Court of Justice of the European Union On EU Patent

Axel H. Horns
June 08, 2010 16:02

Court of Justice of the European Union (former ECJ) In some earlier posting I had reported that, on the occasion of the 2945th session of the Council of the European Union - Competitiveness Configuration (Internal Market, Industry and Research) - held on May 28, 2009, and in accordance with a...

German Piratenpartei: The Hype Is Over

Axel H. Horns
June 03, 2010 22:29

Google Trends for 'Piratenpartei' The various Pirate Parties which now are active in a large number of countries demand - specific for every country - various modifications of the current system of Intellectual Property law. Hence, they clearly are of relevance for IP professionals. Today I would...

USPTO Making Bulk Data Available To The Public Via Google -- Hello, EPO, Are You Listening?

Axel H. Horns
June 02, 2010 19:32

I just stumbled on an article on techdailydose.nationaljournal.com by Ms Juliana Gruenwald titled PTO Teams With Google On Trademark, Patent Database: "The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Wednesday announced it has reached a two-year 'no-cost' agreement with Google to make patent and ...