INESC TEC organises international conference about intellectual property

During 2017, more than 22,000 patent applications were filed at the European Patent Office - EPO in the Digital Communication and Computer Technology areas, namely software and related devices. This number reflects that nine out of ten patents in Europe are submitted by ICT&E companies.

However, despite the importance that the ICT companies have in the Portuguese economy, our most active companies in the EPO have been filing applications mostly in the pharmaceutics and biotechnology areas. From the 68 patent applications that were granted to Portuguese entities in 2017, the emphasis is on the presence of Biosurfit in the top 5.

It was precisely to raise awareness on SME and universities about the theme of the patents in the ICT&E areas that INESC TEC organised the event  Software IP Conference on 16 November in Porto, with the support of ScaleUp Porto and the sponsorship of Patentree.

The conference brought to Porto people that are responsible for the intellectual property area in large companies such as Qualcomm, Ericsson or Telefonica and also experts from recognised entities such as the European Patent Office or the European IPR Helpdesk, which were represented by the ambassador in Portugal and responsible for INESC TEC's Technology Licensing Office, Catarina Maia.

Topics such as the current state of patents on software, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence or blockchain in Europe, patents and business strategy, among others were discussed.

The researcher mentioned in this news piece is associated with INESC TEC.