WIPO hosts Colloquium on "Technology and Policy Information Available in the Patent System"

Geneva, March 13, 2007
MA/2007/27

On Wednesday, March 14, 2007, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will host the fourth in a series of colloquia on patents that is scheduled to take place between October 2006 and September 2007, at its headquarters in Geneva. This colloquium is entitled "Technology and Policy Information Available in the Patent System." The main function of the patent system is to promote innovation and encourage economic development. In order to achieve this objective, the fact that a patent gives an inventor the exclusive right to prevent others from using the patented invention without his or her consent is compensated by the obligation for the inventor to disclose the information about the newly developed technology for public access. This information function of the patent system is essential for technological development and is increasingly used by many different stakeholders, such as industry, research institutions, governmental authorities, SMEs or educational institutions, among others, to monitor, for example, technological developments in any given field.

Patent documents are particularly important in this context as they contain descriptions of - often the most recent - scientific and technical concepts as well as practical details of processes and apparatus. Patents generally disclose technological information in the national language by describing the inventions in accordance with the requirements of the applicable patent law and by indicating the claimed novelty and inventiveness by reference to the existing state-of-the-art. Thus, in many cases, they furnish a summarized history of technological progress in the field of technology to which they relate.

The two speakers - Mr. Wolfgang Pilch, Principal Director, Patent Information, Head, European Patent Sub-Office, Vienna and Mr. William Meredith, Head, Patent Information and IP Statistics Section, PCT and Patents, Arbitration and Mediation Center, and Global Intellectual Property Issues, WIPO - will address various issues and options offered by the patent systems in terms of retrieving information and respond to questions from the audience.

The program is available at https://www.wipo.int/patent/colloquia/en/2007/02/index.html. The event is open to the general public and will be held at WIPO’s headquarters in Geneva. Anyone interested in attending the meeting is requested to complete the on-line registration form at https://www.wipo.int/patent/colloquia/en/registration/2007_03.html. Information on the full series of WIPO patent colloquia can be found at: https://www.wipo.int/patent/colloquia/en/.