European Patent Applications from the UK in 2024

European Patent Office, Munich

Author Carsten Steger  Licence  CC BY-SA 4.0   Source  Wikimedia Commons

 

Jane Lambert

The European Patent Office ("EPO") is the fifth-largest patent office in the world.   The other four are the China National Intellectual Property Administration, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Japan Patent Office and the Korea Intellectual Property Office.  The EPO grants patents for the territories of its contracting parties on behalf of their governments.  The United Kingdom is one of those parties.  A patent granted by the EPO designating the UK (known as a "European patent (UK)") is treated as equivalent to a patent granted by the Intellectual Property Office in Newport for all practical purposes.

According to EPO figures published earlier this year, there were 6,076 applications from the United Kingdom in 2024.  That was an increase of 3.1% over the previous year, and it placed this country 9th in the list of countries of origin for European patent applications.   The countries ahead of us were the United States with 47,787 European patent applications, Germany with 25,033, Japan with 21,062, China with 20,081, South Korea with 13,107,  France with 10,980, Switzerland with 9,966 and the Netherlands with 7,054.  Immediately behind the UK was Sweden with 4,936 applications.  Italy was 11th with 4,853, and Spain was 15th with 2,192.  In the top 10 countries of origin, only South Korea and Switzerland exceeded the UK's percentage increase in European patent applications, though Hong Kong and Norway, which are further down the list, saw double-digit percentage increases.

Britain's 3.1% uptick is less impressive when the number of European patent applications per country is compared to its population.   Switzerland produced  1,112.8 applications per million inhabitants.   It was followed by Sweden with 467.79, Finland with 428.28 and Denmark with 425.92. With 87,88 applications per million, this country came 18th in the list which is surprising for the country that pioneered the industrial revolution and has some of the finest universities in the world.

The following graphic shows the fields for which applications from the UK were filed in 2024.

Consumer goods came top, followed by computers, med-tech and biotech.   The top 10 applicants were as follows:

British American Tobacco Plc	636
Unilever Plc	613
Rolls-Royce Plc	254
BAE Systems Plc	184
British Telecommunications Plc	175
Linde Plc	173
Imperial Brands Plc	140
AstraZeneca Plc	121
Shell Plc	116
Johnson Matthey Inc.	105

One of the reasons why the UK has underperformed its competitors in patenting was thought to be the risk and costs of IP enforcement.   The Arnold reforms which I discussed in New Patents County Court Rules on 31 Oct 2010 NIPC Law, were intended to be an answer to that problem.  It seems to be taking a long time for news that IP enforcement need not be ruinously risky and expensive to filter down to industry.

Small and medium enterprises can protect themselves against such risk and cost by taking out IP insurance cover.  The Intellectual Property Office has published useful Guidance on Intellectual Property Insurance, and the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys maintains a comprehensive list of brokers, underwriters and insurers on its website.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during normal office hours or send me a message through my contact form at any time.

Hydrogen Technology Inventions and the World Hydrogen Summit

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Jane Lambert

The World Hydrogen Summit will take place at Rotterdam Ahoy between 20 and 22 May 2025.  It will consist of a conference and an exhibition (see the conference programme, the list of speakers and the list of exhibitors).  This event will be of particular interest to the residents of Anglesey (described by their local authority as "Energy Island") because Menter Môn will represent Wales in Rotterdam (see press release 14 May 2025 Ynys Môn to represent Wales at World Hydrogen Summit 2025).

The importance of this source of energy was highlighted in the European Patent Office's press release of 10 Jan 2023 to announce the publication of Hydrogen patents for a clean energy future - A global trend analysis of innovation along hydrogen value chains, a joint report by the European Patent Office and the International Energy Agency.   António Campinos, President of the European Patent Office, said:

"Harnessing the potential of hydrogen is a key part of Europe's strategy to achieve climate neutrality by 2050...."

 Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, added:

"Hydrogen from low-emissions sources can play an important role in clean energy transitions with potential to replace fossil fuels in industries where few clean alternatives exist, like long-haul transport and fertilizer production,"

According to the press release, the joint report is the most comprehensive and up-to-date study of global trends in hydrogen technologies for 2011-2020.  Patenting related to hydrogen is led by the EU (28%) and Japan (24%), while the US (20%) is the only major innovation centre to lose ground in the past decade.  Within the EU, Germany (11%), France (6%) and the Netherlands (3%) rank first for patenting hydrogen technologies.  Among end-use applications, automotive continues to be the biggest focus of innovators.  The press release stated that start-ups holding patents attracted more than half of the US$10 billion in venture capital investment into hydrogen-related firms in the last decade.

Anyone wishing to discuss this topic may call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5242 during UK office hours or send me a message through my contact page.

How to Value a Patent

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Jane Lambert

On Thursday 9 May 2024 I attended the Finance and Innovation Conference which took place at the Menai Science Park on Anglesey.  I wrote about my visit in M-SParc's Finance and Innovation Conference on 10 May 2024 in NIPC Wales.  Two of the most interesting conversations were Gwenllian Owen's discussion with a group of business angels and Edward Thomas's discussion with Steve Livingston and representatives of several local financial institutions.  All of those angels and institutions offered funding of various kinds to early-stage enterprises whose assets were likely to consist of little more than a patent or patent application or sometimes just an idea for an invention or business,  A question that I was bursting to ask them was how do you value the assets of such a business?

Because of the very full programme, there was not enough time for me to ask that question to either group of speakers so I decided to research it for myself.  This is what I have come up with.   The short answer is that a patent (or any other intellectual property right for that matter) is what a willing and informed assignee would pay a willing and informed assignor bargaining at arms' length.  I reached that conclusion after reading Valuing Your Intellectual Property which was published by the UK Intellectual Property Office on 12 Dec 2014 and last updated on 4 Jan 2022, How do you measure patent value? published by the European Patent Office and Valuing Intellectual Property Assets published by the World Intellectual Property Organization, the United Nations specialist agency for intellectual property.   The IPO's guidance incorporated the above animation.

Each of those publications refers to three methods of valuations:

• the cost method
• the market value method, and
• the income or economic benefit method.

The "cost method" is the owner's expenditure on developing the intellectual asset and is likely to include such costs as labour, cost or hire of premises, plant and equipment, raw materials, consultancy fees, prototyping and testing and patent prosecution.  The attraction of this method is that the purchaser does not have to incur those costs but the drawback is that the assignor may well have gone about his or her research and development work in the most efficient way.  Also, the IP right may not protect the asset as well as it might.   Expect a lot of horse-trading between the owner and his or her buyer, investor or lender. 

The "market value" method is to compare the proposed transaction with similar transactions relating to similar intellectual assets.   That is likely to be more accurate than the cost method where the relevant information is available because it is about transactions that have actually taken place.  One problem is that the parties may not wish to publish information about their deals.  Another is that the times may have been different.  A transaction that makes sense when interest rates or low or market demand is strong may be unviable now.  Yet another problem is that there may be significant differences between the invention in one transaction and the invention in another.   Also, newly formed businesses or businesses operating in a new technology or market may not be able to point to comparable data,

The "income" or "economic benefit" is the deduction of past and anticipated costs of developing the asset from the past and anticipated revenues that it may have and may continue to generate.  The problem with this method is that it requires a lot of crystal ball gazing and is likely to be subject to a lot of wishful thinking. However, if there are some licensing deals producing verifiable royalties or an income-generating invention it may be the most accurate method yet.   According to the WIPO, the income method is the most commonly used method of valuation.

There are businesses like Ocean Tomo that hold IP auctions from time to time.  I have no personal experience of them so I can neither recommend nor not recommend them. Readers contemplating such services should make their own enquiries, take their own advice and form their own views as to whether an auction would benefit them.

There are also businesses like Inngot which offer valuation services.  Inngot was co-founded by a distinguished academic lawyer who has recently retired as Principal of Bangor University.  I have shared a platform with one of its former employees on two occasions very successfully and have high regard for its publications.  However, I have no experience of its valuation services.

A first step for any business which wishes to value its IP would be an IP audit.  Readers may wish to consult How to Use an IP Audit which I wrote in NIPC News on 13 Jan 2022.  They may also wish to use the IPO's handy IPR Valuation Checklist.   While I do not carry out IP audits myself I can certainly address legal issues that may arise in the course of such exercises such as construing patent claims.   Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me during office hours on 020 7404 5252 or send me a message through my contact form.

Selling your Invention

 

Jane Lambert

The European IP Helpdesk has recently published a fact sheet on intellectual property assignments entitled Commercialising Intellectual Property: Assignment Agreements which can be downloaded from the EU Publication Office.  I mention it because the European Patent Office's Inventors' Handbook suggests an outright sale of a patent, patent application or other intellectual property right as a possible way in which an inventor can exploit his or her invention.

In my experience, it is rare for inventors who are not employed by companies in research and development or universities in academic research to assign their inventions to a business that is established in the industry for which the invention was created.  As I explained in How to Make Money from your Invention: Licensing on 15 Sept 2017, it is hard enough to find a business that is prepared to take a licence.  Most are even more reluctant to carry out due diligence and pay a lump sum to an inventor from outside their industry.

It is much more likely that a business that has developed an article that does not fit in its product range or a process that it is unlikely to use may offer its invention to others.  In the United States, there are established online and physical marketplaces for the sale of intellectual rights.  That is not yet the case here though there are businesses like Inngot Limited which will prepare an intellectual asset for sale.

Both potential purchasers and vendors should take legal and tax advice before embarking on negotiations,  The vendor should satisfy itself that it will never need to use the invention or the work leading up to its creation again.  If that is not the case it will need to negotiate licences.  The purchaser should satisfy itself that the vendor is entitled to sell the invention, that its use will not infringe other parties' patents or other intellectual property rights and that the patent, patent application or other legal protection is sufficient,   A mechanism for valuing the intellectual asset will have to be agreed.   In the UK and most other countries, the assignment must be in writing and signed by all parties.  The assignment should also be recorded at the intellectual property office of every relevant country.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact page, 

Business and Technical Information from Patent Databases

Jane Lambert

An invention is a solution to a technical problem. When applying for a patent for an invention, the inventor has to file among other things a document known as a "specification".  Such specification must contain a description of the invention and any drawing referred to in the description and disclose the invention in a manner which is clear enough and complete enough for the invention to be performed by a person skilled in the art. In due course, the specification is examined by officials of the intellectual property office known as "examiners" for compliance with the legislation governing patents and published on the office's website for all to see.

As an invention has to be new and involve an inventive step to justify a patent, such publications are important sources of scientific and technical information.  Many of those publications are held on giant databases such as the UK Intellectual Property Office's Ipsum, the European Patent Office's Espacenet and Google Patents.

These are two good reasons for consulting such a database.  The first is that you have an invention for which you seek a patent. You will want to check the prior art to ascertain whether your invention really is new and does involve an inventive step.  In almost every case your patent attorney will do that for you when you first instruct him but, if there is something out there that you can spot for yourself, you can save yourself a lot of time and money and instruct him more effectively by making your own search.  The second good reason is to find out about the latest technology.  In Why researchers should care about patents, the European Patent Office offers three advantages:

• Avoiding duplication of R&D efforts and spending; 
• Finding solutions to technical problems; and
• Gathering business intelligence. 

Henk Heus actually gives 10 Reasons Why Research Scientists Should Patent Search though these seem to be substantially the same as the EPO's (see 29 Oct 2015 GQ Life Sciences). According to Heus, up to 30% of R&D expenditure is wasted on duplicating research that has already been carried out.
Different databases will allow you to search in different ways.  With Ipsum, you need the application or publication number and the first page will look like this:

From the menu in the top right-hand corner, you can select the documents that you need.  Nearly every transaction relating to the invention will be recorded on Ipsum. So if you want to trace the prosecution history this is the place to go.   Espacenet and Google will allow you to search by proprietor, title and other search terms as well as by number.  These are the tools that you will use to make a more general enquiry,

When you find an invention that interests you can choose the full specification or the parts of the specification that interest you most such as the abstract, description, drawings or claims. The abstract will be a summary of the invention.  The description is essentially an instruction manual. It will identify the problem that the invention seeks to solve, discuss previous attempted solutions where they fell short. set out the solution in principle and then give an example.  It may do that by reference to numbered diagrams known as the "drawings".  At the end of the specification, there will be numbered paragraphs known as "the claims". That is the monopoly sought by the applicant.  Usually, the widest is expressed first and all subsequent ones tend to be narrower than the first rather like a matryoshka doll.    You should remember at all times that the specification is addressed to the "person skilled in the art", that is to say, the person or team of persons having the knowledge, skills and experience to make or use the invention.  Some words or terms may have a special meaning which is different from everyday usage.

While not essential, some introductory training in patent searching can help at the start.  Patent search workshops have been offered from time to time by the British Library and some of the other Business and IP Centres around the country. I shall be giving a short one-hour introduction to patent, trade mark and design searches and how to read patent specifications at the Menai Science Park on Angelsey between 13:30 and 14:30 on 29 Nov 2019 (see How to use Patent, Trade Mark and Registered Design Databases 2 Nov 2019 NIPC Wales). If you want to sign up for the class which is free, click here.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article or patents generally should call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact page.

A Useful Little Video from the EPO

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How to make Money from your Invention - Starting your own Business

Jane Lambert

On 13 Sept 2017, I introduced readers to the Inventors Handbook on the European Patent Office's website which suggests four ways of exploiting an invention in its Exploitation Routes page:

• "A licensing agreement with a company
• Business start-up: get your idea to market yourself
• A joint venture 
• Outright sale of your idea."

I discussed the first way in How to Make Money from your Invention: Licensing on 14 Sept 2017. This article discusses the second option, namely a business start-up.

Before starting on this route inventors should satisfy themselves that they have the right personal qualities. Wherever they live in the UK, a good place to start is Business Wales's Starting up and Business Planning page.  In particular, they should read Is self-employment for you? and complete the Assess Your Personal Qualities questionnaire. There may be options even for those who score badly on that assessment such as employment or a consultancy with a business to be set up by others who are of the right temperament and possess the right skills and experience.  Considerably caution should be exercised by both sides in those circumstances.  Any agreement should be properly documented with both sides taking legal and accounting advice.

The next question for inventors is whether they have the right skills.   Some of these can be taught.  The Business and IP Centre at the British Library and its national network of city centre libraries host free or inexpensive courses and workshops on all sorts of topics from accounting to writing business plans. Other good places to learn include Tech Nation's Digital Academy and the Google Campus.  Another option is to build a team.  Again, that requires caution. professional advice for all concerned and full documentation.  Ideally, there should be a professionally drafted shareholders' or other agreement between the promoters with robust dispute resolution procedures in case things go wrong.

Such an agreement should incorporate or at least refer to a business plan and it goes without saying that the business plan should take account of intellectual property (see Jane Lambert Why Every Business Plan Should Take Account of Intellectual Property 3 April 2016 NIPC News). The business plan should be more than something to impress the bank manager.  It should be the company's road map.  The business plan should coordinate every aspect of the company's activities and policy including research and development, marketing and of course intellectual property (see An IP Strategy for Private Inventors  13 Jan 2019).

The business plan will be relied upon by the company's investors and lenders.  Long term investment to enable the company to buy or hire premises, equipment, vehicles and the like will be exchanged for shares in the company.  That is called "equity investment" and it is usually provided by inventors' friends and family, business angels and private equity or venture capital investors.  Working capital to cover components or raw materials, professional service and other short term costs may be provided by the company's bankers or, increasingly frequently, peer-to-peer lenders.  This is often referred to as "debt".  Lenders may require security over the company's assets but they are unlikely to wish to interfere in its management. Equity investors 0ften want representation on the board. Again, both sides should take professional advice and document any agreement that they may reach in a shareholders' agreement or some other instrument.

Inventors should be aware that very few fortunes are made from a single invention.  It may give their business an advantage for a time but that advantage will usually be eroded as competitors' launching their own new products or services. Research and development and innovation should continue.  Inventors should always be looking for the next gap in the market or other business opportunity.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article or inventions generally should call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact page.

How to make Money from your Invention: Licensing

Jane Lambert

In How to make Money from your Invention 13 Sept 2017, I introduced readers to the EPO's Inventors Handbook. Readers will recall that the Handbook advised that there are basically four ways of exploiting an invention:

• A licensing agreement with a company
• A business start-up: get your idea to market yourself
• A joint venture 
• Outright sale of the idea.

In this article, I shall consider the first of those ways, namely licensing the invention.

The Handbook explains that a licensing deal is one that allows a party known as a "licensee" to use the invention in return for a periodic payment known as a "royalty". It adds that 

"The exact terms of the licence must be negotiated in a process that can be lengthy (often many months) and complex. The licence is a binding legal document, so it is usually essential to involve patent attorneys and other legal professionals."

The Handbook continues:

"For many inventors, licensing is the best way to benefit from an invention. The main reasons are:

• The licensee bears the costs and risks of production and marketing.

• Only established companies may have the resources to exploit an idea with major potential.

• Licensing can provide the inventor with an income over many years for relatively little effort."

However, it also warns that "only the strongest forms of IP will interest potential licensees" which in most cases means a patent.  Licensing is often seen as a soft option compared to setting up a new business to market the invention, but, in many if not most cases, the reverse is true.

For a start, unless you are answering an express invitation from a company to submit your invention, you are likely to spend a lot of time and effort looking for a company that could make money from your invention. Finding a company that can make money from your invention is not the same as finding a company that makes a product like your invention. If, for example, your invention renders obsolete a technology in which a company has invested heavily or threatens an income stream such as the supply of consumables or replacement parts, such a company may be the last business on earth to be interested in your product.

Once you have found a potential licensee you have to persuade that company that it can make money from your invention.  Sometimes, nothing short of a detailed business plan will do. That is bound to be a bit hit and miss as you are unlikely to have access to the financial, marketing and technical information that is available to the company's managers.  Even companies like Procter and Gamble and Henkel that invite submissions from inventors require those inventors to show how the invention will fit into their product range. They usually impose strict legal and technical requirements.

Except for companies like P & G and Henkel, you will have to give some thought as to whom you will contact and how you will present your invention. As I said in Finding a Route to Market for Your Invention - Unsolicited Approaches are not usually a Good Idea 25 Feb 2012, you are unlikely to get anywhere with an unsolicited submission. Your best bet is to find out as much as you can about your potential licensee through industry events like trade shows and seminars.  The inventors who are best placed to license an invention are those already in an industry or academics in a relevant discipline. Members of the public with no special connection with the industry will find it hard to sell their ideas.

As a licensee would take a licence under a patent or other intellectual property right, your intellectual property strategy must be one that works for your licensee rather than you.  Your invention must be protected not just in the United Kingdom but in all the countries where the invention is likely to be sold as well as those in which it can be made. Unless you intend to grant an express licence to your licensee you will have to take proceedings against infringers and resist revocation applications in each and every one of those countries. That can be very expensive for a private inventor or small business.

Finally, do not expect your licensee's management to be particularly kind to you.  Their job is to look after their shareholders and not to look after you.  They are likely to drive a very hard bargain in the licensing negotiations. After the licence is granted they will construe it in a way that suits them. Once they have learned how to make your product and developed a market for it they may try to challenge clauses they don't like or seek reductions in the royalty or other payments. When negotiating the licence you should think about dispute resolution and choose a method and governing law that works for you.

In negotiating your licensing agreement you are likely to need the services of a patent strategist who could be a lawyer with experience of licensing or a patent or trade mark attorney, an accountant with expertise in licensing and tax incentives for new technologies as well as a patent attorney.  Should you wish to discuss this article further, call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.

How to make Money from your Invention

Jane Lambert

So you've invented something. Congratulations!  That was the easy bit.  Your challenge is to make money from your invention without losing your shirt, your home, your marriage or even your mental health. I am not being flippant.  In all the years that I have been practising law, I have known far more inventors whose lives have been ruined by their inventions than those who have become rich from them.

The reason why bad things happen to inventors is that they allow themselves to become obsessed with their inventions. Obsession clouds judgment which leads to bad deals and bad decisions.  Often there is only so much that an inventor's spouse or partner can stand. That is what leads to family breakdowns. Money and relationship problems can lead to depression or worse.

In many cases, those misfortunes could have been avoided by seeking good advice at an early stage. Now intellectual property advice can be expensive but it does not have to be. There is a lot of good advice on the internet for free.  One of the best sources of advice is the Inventors Handbook on the European Patent Office website.

The opening words of the Handbook are as follows:

"The purpose of this Inventors' Handbook is to provide you with basic guidance on all the key stages of turning an invention into a commercial product. Or perhaps we should say the key stages of turning an idea into an enterprise, if we are to widen our definition of 'invention' to include novel processes, business methods, social interactions etc. Though invention has traditionally been associated with manufactured products, it is now better understood that new wealth has always been created primarily from new knowledge, or novel uses of existing knowledge."

I would invite readers to read the rest of the page which stresses the need to reduce risk and control costs and that is where someone like me can often be of assistance.

The next passage I should like you to read right now is Exploitation Routes. The page begins with the words:

"There are basically four ways of exploiting an invention:

• A licensing agreement with a company

• Business start-up: get your idea to market yourself

• A joint venture 

• Outright sale of your idea."

It also warns readers to take care when dealing with invention promotion companies.  Over the next few days, I shall be exploring each of the above options and explaining where you can get more help.

If you want to discuss this article, call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 or send me a message through my contact form.

Animated Advice from across the Pond

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Jane Lambert

In Animated Advice 18 March 2016 NIPC News I introduced readers to some animations published by the Intellectual Property Office, the World Intellectual Property Organization and others. One of the films I mentioned was the IPO's IP BASICS: Should I get a patent?

Today I want to share with you an even more helpful animation published by the US Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") so long as you bear in mind that the USA is a different country, with different institutions and different laws. However, the United States like the United Kingdom is party to a number of international agreements such as the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ("TRIPS") which requires each country's intellectual property laws to be broadly similar.

Here are also some points to bear in mind for British readers:

• The USPTO is the place to start for inventors in the USA because it is the intellectual property office for that country but inventors in this country can start either at the Intellectual Property Office in Newport (look you) or the European Patent Office in Munich ("there's lovely for you!" as they say in Wales).
• Our law does not expressly define an invention though it does list a number of things that can't be patented as such like computer programs or methods of doing business which are not specifically excluded in US law. Also, we cut out some of the verbiage like "machine" or "composition of matter." Basically, an invention can be patented on this side of the Atlantic if it is a product or process.
• One reason why I really like this animation is that it advises inventors to consider writing a business plan and carry out some market research. I've been ramming that message home in my IP clinics, talks to inventors' clubs and blogs for years. Here is just one of my articles: "Why every business plan should take account of intellectual property" 3 Apr 2016 NIPC News.
• The places where you can get help with your invention in this country would be the Business and IP Centres at the British Library next to St Pancras Station in London and the central libraries of Birmingham, Exeter, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Manchester, Newcastle, Northampton, Norwich and Sheffield. Those libraries are also part of a wider network of public libraries that are associated with the EPO called PatLib. If you study the list you will find help available in Aberdeen. Belfast, Glasgow, Plymouth and Portsmouth.  We no longer have anything quite as good as Business USA.gov in this country but we do have the Business and Self-Employed pages of the gov.uk website. Also, you can call me on 020 7404 5252 any time during business hours and I can point you in the right direction.
• As in the USA, you can apply to the IPO or EPO for a patent without instructing a patent attorney but I would strongly advise you against it.  I know patent attorneys don't come cheap but there are funding schemes here to help you (see How Small Businesses can fund IP Advice and Representation 3 Sept 2016 NIPC News). By the way, the terms "patent agent" and "patent attorney" mean different things in the USA. There, a patent attorney means a lawyer specializing in IP but a patent agent is a non-legally qualified professional who prosecutes patent applications. Here, the terms patent attorneys and patent agents are used interchangeably. Patent attorneys in the UK are members of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys which used to be called the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents until a few years ago. Finally, the expression "pro se" is not used in this country. Those who apply for patents without the help of patent attorneys are usually referred to as "unrepresented applicants". 
• In this country, we don't have "utility", "design" or "plant patents" as such but we do have registered and registered Community designs (for the time being) and EU and national plant breeders' rights  (see Jane Lambert Protecting Investment in New Plant Varieties 4 May 2016 LinkedIn). What Americans call "utility patents" are simply "patents" here.
• There is no call centre in Newport or Munich like the Inventors Assistance Center but both the IPO and EPO publish guidance for unrepresented applicants on their websites and the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, Ideas 21 and I hold free consultations with an IP professional at towns and cities around the UK. Check out CIPA's IP Clinics page and Ideas 21's regular advice sessions in London. Mine are held in Barnsley on the second Tuesday of every month and you can book your appointment through the BarnsleyBiz Surgeries page.

Wherever you are in the country, you can call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.

UK slumps to Ninth Place in European Patent Applications

According to the European Patent Office the UK has slumped from fifth place in the number of applications for European patents in 2004 to ninth in 2013. There were 6,469 European patent filings from the UK in 2013 which was an increase of just 7 from the 6,462 in 2004. By contrast, there 32,022 from Germany compared to 28,221 in 2004 and 12,417 from France in 2013 compared to 9,656 in 2004. But the real growth in applications has come from China (22,292 in 2013 compared to 1,880 in 2004) and South Korea (16,857 in 2013 compared to 5,721 in 2004).

For a more complete picture I have compiled the following table of the top 10 applicant countries based on European Patent Office data:

Country	2012	2013
USA	63,198	64,967
Japan	51,791	52,437
Germany	33,850	32,022
China	19,182	22,292
South Korea	14,791	16,857
France	12,285	12,417
Switzerland	8,129	7,966
Netherlands	6,489	7,606
UK	6,666	6,469
Sweden	4.654	5.094

The UK's performance is even more depressing when the number of applications per million inhabitants are taken into consideration (see the table on page 15 of Facts and Figures for 2014 that can be downloaded from the "Publications" page of the EPO website). The UK comes 16th in that league with 72 European patent applications per million inhabitants.  Top of the list is Switzerland with 832 European patent applications per million inhabitants followed by Sweden (402), Finland (360), Denmark (347), Netherlands (347) and Germany (328). Japan comes 9th with 177 European patent applications per million inhabitants, France 10th with 148, South Korea 12th with 129, the Republic of Ireland 13th with 115 and the USA 15th with 107.

Why does the UK do so badly in the number of applications to its home patent office in comparison with its global competitors? I used to think that it was because of the high cost of enforcement in the UK compared to France, Germany and the Netherlands. The rule changes limiting the costs and duration of proceedings in the Patents County Court (now IPEC) in October 2010 addressed that problem but  the number of European patent filings from the UK has actually fallen from 7,146 in 2010 to 6,469 in 2013.

Paradoxically a report by Silicon Valley Bank on Innovation Economy Outlook 2014 published this week paints a rather rosy picture for the UK. This report may well contain the answer. Much of the UK's growth has been in the service sector, especially financial and professional services and information technology for which patents are not available. Manufacturing in the UK is less important than it is in our continental and East Asian competitors.

If that is the explanation it suggests a failure of Coalition policy since 2010 to rebalance the British economy from one that is heavily dependent on services and the public sector to an economy based on manufacturing and exports.

The Inventors' Handbook

Source   European Patent Office, Inventors' Handbook

Regular readers will have found a new panel to the left entitled "European Patent Office Guidance to Inventors" which contains links to the home page of "The Inventors' Handbook" and several of its chapters.

I don't know how many times I have visited the European Patent Office ("EPO") website during my career but I shouldn't be surprised if it is very much less than the number of hot dinners I have consumed in my lifetime. Yet it is only this morning that I stumbled on this handbook which contains some of the best advice available to inventors.  Had more inventors visited this useful little site there would have been more successful inventors and flourishing firms and far fewer business failures, broken marriages and nervous breakdowns.

The home page of the site summarizes everything the independent inventor needs to know about confidentiality, market research, working with others, business planning, raising funds, patenting and alternative IP protection and dealing with companies. I will take the last of those topics by way of example since unsuccessful negotiations with potential licensees and joint venture partners provides a large part of my work as an IP lawyer.

Probably the most misleading advice that has ever been given to inventors is: "build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door".  It is absolute nonsense.  The phrase is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson but he was much too bright to have said such a thing.  What he actually said was

"If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods."

Moreover, mousetraps were not invented until after Emerson's death.  

Much better advice comes from the EPO:

"If you want a licensing agreement with a company, you must:

• Find the right companies to approach.

• Approach them in the right way.

Finding suitable companies to approach may be harder than you think, because big, well-known companies are often the least likely to want to deal with inventors."

The page adds that  many inventors also make the mistake of approaching companies too soon, very few big companies genuinely welcome ideas and suggestions from outside their industry, smaller companies may be more receptive but there may be disadvantages in dealing with them too. Subsequent pages advise on how to make the first contact and conduct meetings.  Finally, there is some useful guidance on dealing with companies, negotiating licence agreements and reaching agreement.  Finally, in flat contradiction to the mousetrap misquotation, the EPO warns that companies "will never look at your invention and say: ‘This is so good that we must do it, no matter what it costs us!"

Much better for you to listen to this Emmerson:

If you want to discuss this article or anything to do with inventions you can call me on 020 7404 5252 during normal business hours or fill in my contact form.  Have a good weekend folks.  If you are going to a party tonight I hope it's as good as Emmerson's.

European Inventor Award 2013

Every year the European Patent Office grants awards to outstanding inventors in the following categories:

• Industry
• Small and Medium Enterprises
• Research
• Non-European Countries
• Lifetime Achievement
• Popular Prize.

Members of the public are invited to nominate inventors as are the EPO's 4,000 patent examiners (see the FAQ and eligibility rules and conditions). Entries for all the categories except the "Popular Prize" are judged by a distinguished, international jury which includes Peter Marsh of the Financial Times and Erno Rubik, the  inventor of Rubik's cube.  The awards are presented at an annual ceremony which takes place in a different European city every year.

This year's award ceremony took place in Amsterdam on 28 May in the presence of HRH Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands. The winners were:

• Industry: Claus Hämmerle and Klaus Brüstle of Austria for a damper system that facilitates the smooth closing of furniture doors, drawers and wall cabinets;
• Small and Medium Enterprises: Pål Nyrén of Sweden for a far faster, less complicated and less time-consuming method to sequence DNA strands that uses the photo-reactive properties of chemicals and DNA enzymes to identify DNA sequences;
• Research: Patrick Couvreur, Barbara Stella, Véronique Rosilio and Luigi Cattel of France and Italy for coated inside minuscule capsules of anti-cancer drugs which can be transported straight to diseased cells in the human body, where they take action without harming healthy tissue along the way;
• Non-European Countries: Ajay V. Bhatt, Bala Sudarshan Cadambi, Jeff Morriss, Shaun Knoll and Shelagh Callahan of the USA for one of the most ubiquitous computer advances since the computer processor, the universal serial bus (USB) which has greatly simplified a previous maze of competing plug designs, allowing effortless plug-and-play functionality and simultaneous connection of many devices;
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Martin Schadt of Switzerland for LCD technology; and
• Popular Prize: José Luis López Gómez of Spain for a series of inventions relating to an ‘independent guided' wheel design rather than a standard axle which greatly improves safety and comfort.

The 2014 award ceremony will take place in Berlin and details of the awards ceremonies and winners in previous years winners can be found here.

Investing wisely in IP - my 6-Point Plan for any Business

A patent, copyright, trade mark, registered design or other IP right is nothing more than a right to bring a law suit. Its purpose is to protect the income generated by an intellectual asset, that is to say, a brand, design, technology or creative work.   Such protection does not come cheap.   According to research commissioned by the EPO, it costs €32,000 to obtain a typical European patent and maintain it for 10 years.   That is an awful lot of money to spend considering that most patents are never worked.   Enforcement is even more expensive. IPAC (HM government’s high level advisory committee on intellectual property) estimates that a patent infringement action costs £1 million in the High Court.  That explains why I have seen far more businesses fail from having too much IP than from having too little in my 32 years at the English bar.  

Yet there are circumstances in which a business needs to protect its investment in branding, design, technology or creative works. How does a businessman or woman recognize such circumstances and how does he or she choose the optimum legal protection.   Here is a simple 6-point plan that can apply to just about any business.

1.   Choose a period in which you expect your business to develop.   This can be any period of your choosing which will probably depend on the nature of your business and products and services.   For a company in the fashion or novelties business this could be a matter of months or even weeks.   For a pharmaceutical company it could be decades.

2.   Identify the main income streams that you expect to develop in that period.   IP is intended to protect income streams,   If your invention is never going to earn money whether directly or indirectkly through sale or licensing why waste thousands of pounds on patenting it?  Similarly, if you have no sales in country X and are never likely to have any why seek intellectual property proteciton there? You may want tpo protect yourself in country X it it has a sufficient industrial base to allow a competitor to set up there but, if not, why bother?       

3.   Consider potential threats to each of those income streams.   Competition from competing products or services may be one but there may be others such as changing patterns of demand or the general economic situation.

4.   List possible counter-measures to those threats.   Most of these will be commercial rather than legal such as cutting your prices or developing new products or services but for some threats such as plagiarism you may actually need some legal protection such as a patent or design registration.

5.   If any of those counter-measurers is an IP right, choose the most appropriate one for your business.   There is usually a choice. For instance, one way of protecting a new product or process is simply to keep it under wraps and seek to rely on the law of confidence to prevent unauthorized use or disclosure. The other is to proclaim it to the world in exchange for a temporary monopoly of the manufacture, sale and use of the product or use of the process (otherwise known as a “patent”). Where the technology has only a short shelf-life, a 20-year monopoly is otiose.   On the other hand, if you are a drug company which has invested millions in R & D in a new product and waited years for approval from drug licensing authorities you need patent protection in every country of the world of you are to see an adequate return on your investment.

6.   Ensure that there is adequate funding for enforcement proceedings.    Unless you can afford hundreds of thousands of pounds on litigation and can risk at least as much again if you lose your case with equanimity you should think of IP insurance.   Though these articles need to be updated you can start with two articles that I wrote in September 2005: “IP Insurance. Does it Work” (IP/IT Update) and “IP Insurance” (NIPC Inventors Club).

These and other tips are all set out in my presentation to Leeds Inventors Club “So you think you want a Patent?” which I gave on 18 April 2008.   I also discuss them in my book “Enforcing Intellectual property Rights” which appeared earlier this month.