A few days ago we received the pleasant noticia of the concession to José Ángel Ávila and his team of the Center National d'Études Spatiales, CNES, of Inventor of the Year Award granted by the European Patent Office, EPO.
Without a doubt, this is great news and enormous satisfaction for Spain, and we hope that it is only the beginning of a long journey for Spanish companies and workers, who, having José Ángel Ávila and his entire team as a reference, will be encouraged, every day more, to invest and protect its R&D.
Throughout my professional experience I have been able to see how, after coming into contact with workers who are engaged in innovative projects that can be protected by an Industrial Property (IP) right, they are ultimately left without any protection; that is, helpless because the workers themselves and/or the company where the R&D development was born are not aware of the importance of protecting the developments carried out through, at least, an IP right.
La absence of IP rights facilitates the erosion and disappearance of the industry by abandoning this the only advantage that the fact of being the first to manufacture and market the R&D development could provide.
Why are we reluctant to protect R&D developments? What has to change in our DNA for us to take the step of applying for an IP right such as a patent?
The company is often aware of the need to protect R&D developments in two possible situations:
- A first way is, when the company detects that an imitator launches a similar product, taking advantage of the fact that the original product is not protected; That is, the imitator company takes advantage of the work of the entrepreneurial company, to introduce its products to the market, which may be cheaper, since there are no development costs. In this case, the entrepreneurial company's product will register less penetration in the market or to increase market share, the entrepreneurial company will have to reduce its price, needing a longer period of time to recover the costs of developing the product. ;
- and a second way is when the company receives a letter of request inviting her to negotiate the royalties for having used a protected technology without authorization of the owner of the IP right.
In both cases, it is when the company acquires the need to protect its R&D developments and/or to verify that there is no IP right in force that limits its business activity.
If the R&D developments carried out in Spain are protected and we begin to have a culture similar to the one we have in other technological fields such as, for example, organ transplants, it could be more common to read in the media that a Spaniard and a Spanish company has received this type of awards or recognition.
In short, in Spain R&D is carried out that is not always well protected, due to lack of budget or erroneous preconceptions on the part of those responsible for making the decision within the company. Therefore, from here I want to make a call to promote active policies within Spanish companies to protect the R&D developments carried out by them.
Finally, I would not like to fail to mention a topic that has raised certain uncertainties lately. With the entry into force of the 24 / 2015, of July 24, Patents, Only patents processed with a patentability examination will be granted, something optional in our previous regulation. It is clear that this system raises the bar of obligations when applying for a patent, but it is no more true that the rights granted will have much greater legal force and security. Therefore, Spanish patents will be equivalent to those granted by offices such as the European Patent Office (EPO) or the North American Patent Office (USPTO), which carry out the same examination of patentability requirements.
We cannot fail to defend that, With strong and solid patents, Spanish companies will have greater possibilities of internationalizing and transferring their innovations.
As José Ángel Ávila has shown us, it is worth protecting R&D developments through patents. I take this opportunity to congratulate him, not only for the award received, but also for the work carried out throughout his professional career.
Author John Anthony Romero
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