Thursday 17 March 2011

Patent costs under the microscope again

Thanks to a Tweet from Axel Horns I discovered this link to an invitation from the European Commission to tender for yet another patent-focused research project: "Patent costs and impact on innovation: international comparison and analysis of the impact on the exploitation of R&D results by SMEs, universities and public research organisations".

No doubt the research will be rigorous and will deliver plenty of data -- but this blogger has a hunch that he and probably many of the readers of this blog could fill a blank piece of paper with a list of main findings and conclusions that would not fall far short of the real thing.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Jeremy: I might reach the same conclusion as you (and most readers of this blog), but I think that such studies are extremely useful in providing evidence to allow informed policy making. We're seeing an attack on the fundamentals of the patent system through a number of quarters - and whilst I'm convinced that the patent system does support innovation, there is a surprising lack of neutral data.
I read recently an attack on software patents in which an independent "expert" was praised for his critique of the patent system. Following up the citations revealed a much weaker piece of analysis than implied by the citing author.