CORDIS Archive

IPR Seminars

1. Introduction
2. Objective of Seminar Series
3. Speakers and Seminar Contents
4. Statistics and Results of the General Seminars
5. Statistics and Results of the Specific Seminar
6. Conclusion and Suggestions for Further Improvement

---

The action line "IPR Seminars" within the INNOVATION programme, a training for Commission project officers in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) aspects of research and development, is aimed at raising awareness for innovation protection systems. The statistics and report of two series of IPR seminars organised from 1996 - 1998 is presented below. It is planned to continue the systematic training of European Commission staff, and selected contractors to European Commission financed RTD projects might be invited to attend seminars if necessary to ensure proper treatment of key knowledge resulting from their projects. Based on the experiences gained in the pilot phase, a modular approach will be developed, coherent with the awareness raising activities the IPR Helpdesk. Multimedia applications will later allow for easy downloading of up-to-date, legally correct information from a centralised server.

The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) seminar is one of the first activities launched by the Co-ordination Group for Dissemination and Exploitation (CDE). the seminars are organised by the DG IX Training Unit in collaboration with DG XIII/D/1. A trial seminar was held with the selected speakers in December 1995 and was attended by the members of the CDE. Based on the recommendations of this group, a series of six two-day general seminars was held from February to May 1996. In addition two specific seminars on Life Sciences, Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering were held in November 1996 and June 1997. Due to relevance of the seminar topic and the interest shown, the CDE recommended to organise further IPR seminars while modifying the length of the seminars to one-and-a-half day. As a result a second series of four general seminars with an adjusted programme was organised from November 1997 to March 1998. the following report presents the objectives and the results of the seminars and suggestions for further improvement.

It is generally recognized that the industrial development in Europe has to be improved by focusing on the exploitation of RTD results. Intellectual Property Rights are a prerequisite to successful exploitation since they act as a means to secure the investments necessary for market development and may foster exploitation via licensing to third parties.

However, a study the European Patent Office in 1995 has revealed that two thirds of European small and medium sized enterprises which generate inventions do not have access to the patent system and are not aware of the possible benefits. To support the protection and exploitation of Community funded RTD projects, project officers monitoring the execution of RTD programmes must have sufficient knowledge on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in order to be able to understand and help contractors with their specific IPR questions and IPR strategies of Community RTD projects and contracts.

The seminar was targeted at Commission officials and scientific officers monitoring the execution of Community RTD projects. the purpose of the seminar was thus to acquaint these persons, particularly from a practical point of view, with intellectual property aspects so as to promote the exploitation of the results of Community RTD projects. the programme was to cover all IPR aspects of RTD projects from the initial reservation of property rights to the exploitation of IPRs, while giving special attention to the IPR aspects of the cost reimbursement model RTD contract.

For the first round, a restricted call was launched to select the speakers. The choice was based on the strong industrial experience of the speakers and the lowest quoted price of all bids. In reaction to the comments of the participants of the first trial seminar,

• an additional Commission speaker was included to present the view of the Commission regarding the IPR aspects in the model RTD contracts;
  
  
• three external speakers were chosen instead of two: a third speaker was invited to speak on licensing;

documentation were produced and distributed before the seminar start and role plays and case studies suggested by the participants ("real cases") were incorporated into the seminar.

The final seminar of the first round covered the following modules:

Module 1: General Introduction on Intellectual Property Rights
Module 2: Discussion on main lines of IPR
Module 3: Dissemination of Community RTD results
Module 4: Consortium agreements between contracting partners
Module 5: Licensing
Module 6: Discussion of case studies

For the second series of general IPR seminars, the speakers of the seminar had been previously selected as speakers for the specific seminar on Life Sciences, Biotechnology and Genetic Engeneering. They provided a general introduction into IPRs and a third speaker presented the module on IPR issues of the cost reimbursement model RTD contract for Community RTD activities. The seminar programme covered the following modules:

Module 1: General Introduction on Intellectual Property Rights
Module 2: Main lines of IPR strategies
Module 3: Analysis of the Model Contract for Community RTD projects
Module 4: Exploitation of IPRs
Module 5: Discussion of case studies
Module 6: Current problematic issues in IPRs (optional)