European IP Helpdesk Newsletter

The European IP Helpdesk team are excited to announce the "EU-13 Roadshow" – a series of onsite events targeting user communities and stakeholders in the EU-13 or 'Widening' countries. These events are organised in close collaboration with European IP Helpdesk Ambassadors, regional partners, and other internationally active intellectual property (IP) support institutions like the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), International IP SME Helpdesks, and ASTP. Starting in October this year, the EU-13 Roadshow plans to conduct six onsite events in 2024 and 2025. Registration for the first events will open in September. Stay tuned for more details!

Artificial intelligence (AI) has seen phenomenal growth in recent years, leading to its introduction as commercial products by software providers. This blog post explores the legal implications of AI-generated images, provides a checklist for evaluating the use of AI software to generate new content and considers the current legal background and state of the industry.

The European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) provides a comparative evaluation of the research and innovation (R&I) achievements among European Union (EU) Member States, neighbouring European nations, and selected global competitors. According to the Scoreboard, between 2023 and 2024 the innovation performance of 15 Member States has improved, while another group of 11 experienced a decline. Croatia's performance remained stable during this period.

The European Commission has recently launched two Policy Support Facility (PSF) Country Initiatives to support Ukraine and Czechia. These initiatives are offering external advice and operational recommendations for reforming Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) and are developing governance policies for public research infrastructures. Both PSF initiatives, aimed at boosting innovation and improving performance in Czechia and Ukraine, will be rounded off with a dissemination event in early 2025.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has introduced its first Youth Empowerment Strategy, known as "IP-YES!". This new policy framework aims to provide strategic alignment for WIPO's existing youth engagement initiatives and to bridge the gap between intellectual property (IP) and younger generations. Through these actions, IP-YES! seeks to equip young people with the essential knowledge, resources, and opportunities related to IP. This support is crucial in empowering them to realise future aspirations and turn their innovative ideas into tangible outcomes.

The European Patent Office (EPO) is organising the second edition of CodeFest to explore the transformative potential of generative artificial intelligence in deriving new insights from patent data. All coders or developers aged 18 or over are welcome to submit their proposals for solutions by 8 August 2024. Submissions can come from an individual or a team of up to five people. Anyone residing in one of the EPO member states is eligible to contribute.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has published a Patent Landscape Report providing observations on patenting activity and scientific publications in the field of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). According to the report, the United Kingdom (UK) is the leading European location (sixth globally) with 714 patents published. However, Germany is following closely behind (708 patent families) and has published more GenAI patents than the UK in recent years.

Canada has become part of the expanding group of non-EU countries that have become associated with the EU's research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe, and will collaborate on large-scale projects addressing some of the most significant challenges. On 3 July, Iliana Ivanova, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, and François-Philippe Champagne, Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, signed the agreement that allows Canadian researchers and organisations to participate in the Horizon Europe programme on equal terms with their EU counterparts.