Expanding the IP information highway

• Pages: 9-12

Never before has so much information been so

easily available to so many people. The In ternet

has transformed every aspect of our lives, open-

ing up new frontiers of know ledge and new op-

portuni ties for innovati on and creativit y. But en-

suring universal access to the technical information

contained in patent docum ents and science jour-

nals to enable broad pa rticipation in innovation

presents significan t challenges that und erscore

the need for effectiv e internationa l cooperation .

Since the bi rth of the intern ational inte llectual

proper ty ( IP) s ystem in t he 18 80s, p olicymak ers

have emphas ized t he de velopment of IP’s legal

archit ecture. While this is of con tinuing impo r-

tance, the in ternation al IP c ommunity is now al-

so foc using on the ben efits th at can d erive fro m

enhanc ing IP’s techn ical archite cture. Not on ly

will this e nsure mo re effic ient de livery of ser vic-

es by IP offices and help re duce th e know ledge

gap, it prom ises to enable users to l everage the

benefi ts associated wi th q uick and easy access

to IP informa tion.

In a recent interview with WI PO Magazi ne, WIPO

Director Ge neral Fra ncis Gur ry ex plained that,

“Just as participation in the physical eco nomy re-

quires acce ss to roads, bridges a nd vehicles to

transpor t good s, simi lar in frastructure is needed

in the virtual an d knowledge economy. However,

here the highway is the Inter net an d other net-

works, bridges are interopera ble dat a stan dards,

and vehi cles are comp uters and da tabases.”

The internationa l IP communit y’s new empha sis

on strengthening IP’s technical infrastructure stems

from va rious charac teristics o f the evol ving inter-

national innovation l andscape. These include:

rising global demand for IP ri ghts th at has fu-

elled a backlog in process ing applicat ions, par-

ticularly for patents;

the chan ging geography of innovatio n;

the intern ationalization o f paten ting ac tivity

and associated expansi on in the languages of

patent d isclosures;

growing demand by users for access to value -

added information on the In ternet, and to au-

tomated search tools; and

a commitme nt to reducing the k nowledge gap.

Expanding the IP highway

The widesprea d availability of the Internet and

other information and commu nication tech nolo-

gies (I CTs) has created an opportunity to build IP

networks and to enhance the flow of IP informa-

tion around the world. Developing and l east de-

veloped countries increasingly recognize t hat ef-

fective IP systems pl ay a key role in promoting

national economic development. Many, with

WIPO’s assistance, have started to modern ize their

IP systems and operations using ICTs to digitize

their data colle ctions and to d eliver enhanc ed IP

services that connect to inter-

national IP network s for im-

proved efficiency and wor k

sharing be tween offices.

Of all the IP rights, patents gen-

erate the largest amount of

technical work for granting au-

thorities. A more transparent and

efficient patent system under-

pinned by effective work sharing

practices is good news for smaller

patent offices that do not have the expertise or re-

sources to handle the applications they receive. It

also benefits applicants whose principal interest

lies in promptly obtaining patent rights that are

valid in many countries.

Part of the bargain in the patent-granting process is

that applicants must describe how their inventions

work. These descriptions, or disclosures, which be-

come freely available to the public, help determine

whether a claimed invention satisfies the criteria for

patentability – broadly, whether it is new, useful,

non-obvious (or has an inventive step) and merits a

patent. Patent examiners in the offices of the coun-

tries in which protection is sought undertake a

search of the “prior art”,1to establish the novelty and

inventive step of a claimed invention.

Today, given the territoria l na ture of IP rights –

whereby th ey are legally valid only in the country

or region in which t hey are granted – a single

inv ento r see king t o prot ect a t echn olog y in

different marke ts will have to submit multiple

pate nt appl icati ons for t he sam e techn ology.

EXPANDING THE

IP INFORMATION

HIGHWAY

9

1 Prior ar t constitutes all

information made

available to the public

in any for m before a

given date that might

be relevan t to a

patent’s cla im of

novelty an d

inventiveness. If an

invention h as been

described in prior ar t,

a patent on that

invention i s not valid.

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