a-mixed-picture
1 April 2014Patents

A mixed picture for the Emerald Isle

The figures are reeled off by Gerard Barrett, Ireland’s top IP official, and controller of patents, designs and trademarks at the Irish Patents Office.

It is true that the filing figures for national patents are falling as the recession bites, he says, but this underestimates Ireland’s importance in IP because so many foreign companies with operations in Ireland file overseas rather than for national patents.

In 2013 Barrett’s job title was described in Modernising Copyright, an official review of Ireland’s copyright system, as “inelegant and incomplete”. It was not an attack on Barrett himself but both his title and his office’s name “drastically” understate the range of the work they undertake, said the report, published in October last year. It argued that because Barrett oversees a large part of the day-to-day administration of copyright, the terms ‘controller of IP’ and ‘office of the controller of IP’ would be more inclusive and appropriate.

“It’s a good idea,” says Barrett, adding that he is unsure whether the office will be affected by any of the other proposed changes in the review, which is being considered by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation.

“For example, the report addresses the need for a regime in relation to orphan works. My understanding is that the ministry will introduce some legislation to transpose the EU directive on orphan works, which requires a national ‘competent authority’ to receive information on orphan works and pass it on to the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, which will maintain an online register.

“There is also a requirement for the ‘competent authority’ to determine the matter of fair compensation if there is a dispute about licensing orphan works. It’s likely the patents office will be considered the ‘competent authority’,” he says.

Around the same time as the report was published, Barrett became controller of the office, nearly 20 years after he joined as chief operating officer. “It’s not a very big office, which means you can't delegate as much as you might like; you have to be hands-on in a lot more projects and activities than you would in a bigger office,” he explains.

Founded in Dublin in 1926, the office relocated to Kilkenny, a medieval city about 60 miles south-west of the capital, in 1998. It has 42 full-time staff: “One thing we do well is operate a quality service with the staff, who are well trained, knowledgeable and experienced,” says Barrett.

But the office has been slow to adapt to the modern era. Online trademark filing is only just beginning to materialise, and at the moment is confined to a Dropbox facility that provides online services to a number of regular filers. In March the office’s staff finished extensive testing of the online filing system, says Barrett, and it was due to launch publicly at the end of the month.

"The many foreign investment companies, often multinationals doing a lot of research and development, do not generally file national patents. “They are filing abroad,”

“Designs e-filing will follow later in the year, with patents following probably in 2015 or 2016,” he adds.

Despite this progress, the office seems to be moving backwards in other areas. The filing figures for national patents are “not all that great”, Barrett admits. In 2012, the office handled 216 applications for 20-year patents and 338 for 10-year patents, 554 in total. But in 2013, there were only 135 applications for 20-year patents and 255 for the shorter-term equivalent, a total of 390.

“The figures have been dropping quite considerably,” Barrett says, “partly due to the recession.”

Of the granted national patents in Ireland, those in the construction industry are most numerous.

“There were 505 granted patents in construction between 2007 and 2011; a lot of our economy in that period was based on the building boom, which has declined considerably since.”

A big hit

Ireland’s economy was hit hard by the global recession, which began in 2008, but innovation there seems to have suffered particularly badly in recent times. The European Patent Office (EPO) received more than 250,000 patent applications in 2013, a record year. It was the fourth consecutive year of growth at the EPO, following a near 7 percent drop between 2008 and 2009 owing to the recession.

The UK IP Office received just over 20,000 patent applications in 2012, the highest figure for five years.

“The Irish national filing figures don’t mean that there is no innovative activity going on,” says Barrett. Instead, they fail to show that the many foreign investment companies, often multinationals doing a lot of research and development, do not generally file national patents. “They are filing abroad,” Barrett says, “probably in the US (if their parent company is based there) or filing Patent Cooperation Treaty or European patent applications.”

Barrett also points to the European Commission's Innovation Union Scoreboard, published in March 2014, to highlight the extent of innovative activity in Ireland. In the ranking of the EU’s 28 member states, Ireland has moved from 10th to ninth since last year’s report and topped the ‘economic effects of innovation’ indicator.

“This reflects the success of innovation in employment in knowledge-intensive activities, the contribution of high-tech product exports to the trade balance, and licence and patent revenues from selling technologies abroad,” says Barrett.

Although national patent figures seem to paint a fairly depressing picture, trademark filings portray a happier scene. From 2012 to 2013, the number of national applications rose from 2,210 to 2,347, which is “fairly positive,” says Barrett. Applications to the Madrid system that included Ireland also increased—from 1,250 in 2012 to 1,427 a year later.

“It’s a little bit of an upturn, which we regard as positive,” Barrett says. “It might mean that companies have been fairly conservative in their approach to launching new brands and products or services in the recession, and they might be coming out of that now and planning to do a bit more and possibly looking at new markets.

“It is possible that a lot of small companies couldn’t expand before due to the credit crunch, but it’s a bit early to say.”

Barrett says the office does not set filing targets because, “given the size of the market it’s extremely difficult to contemplate forecasts”. Nevertheless, he hopes that the upturn in trademark filings will continue across the board as the economy—at least until recently—showed signs of improvement.

“It’s difficult to say for national patents, but I’m hopeful that some of the smaller companies especially are looking to put their foot in the door and use a national filing as a precursor to a foreign filing,” he says.

The office is certainly on the right track to promoting IP in Ireland, consulting with trademark and patent owners fairly regularly. Barrett also meets members of the country’s law society from time to time to discuss how the office can improve its procedures.

“We need to keep the conversation going with our users and stakeholders to make sure our procedures are as effective as possible and in line with best international practice,” he says.

“We do a lot of awareness raising, as much as we can, but we don’t have huge staff resources to operate a substantial programme. I would like to do more and back it up with making information and tools available online.”

Despite the office’s best efforts, the level of innovation will depend largely on economic conditions.

Ireland’s economy contracted sharply in the final three months of last year, with gross domestic product in the three months to December falling by 2.3 percent from the previous quarter and 0.7 percent from the final quarter of 2012.

However, many analysts expect the economy to grow by approximately 2 percent this year, compared with a contraction of 0.3 percent in 2013, so if Barrett and his office can capture some of that growth, the outlook for Irish innovation may soon become brighter.

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