Innovation and IP offices – an introduction

Over the past five years, WTR has tracked the world’s leading IP offices to bring our readers exclusive analytics on the trajectory of innovation around the globe. On page 6, we present the latest IP Office Innovation Ranking, which this year is dominated by a mix of familiar trailblazers, including the EUIPO and UKIPO, and rapidly improving agencies, such as the Brazilian Trademark Agency. While the ranking reveals positive overall improvement – especially in terms of trademark offices developing their digital tools – there is a growing gap between the most innovative agencies and the less-resourced registries, the latter of which are failing to provide their users with even the most basic non-core offerings.

Of course, the ability to implement advanced digital tools such as e-filing requires assets that may be out of reach for some. On page 14, WIPO Director General Daren Tang offers his exclusive take on how the IP office of tomorrow can emerge, explaining why there is a “greater scope for increased coordination” to help share resources in the development of non-core tools and services. That approach is shared by the EUIPO’s executive director, Christian Archambeau, who on page 24 explains how the agency – which has twice been crowned the most innovative IP office in the world – has “evolved in parallel with the belief that cooperation leads to innovation”.

Outside of cooperation, on page 18 the former head of the Intellectual Property Office of Chile (INAPI), Maximiliano Santa Cruz, explains some of the other ways that he has innovated on a budget. He further reveals that one of the surprising outcomes of the covid-19 pandemic was how “breakthroughs in innovation occurred” at many IP registries, for example, implementing digital filing as physical headquarters were forced to close.

In another exclusive article, on page 20 the chief executive of the IPOS goes into detail on how she is building a “a future-proof IP registry” and discusses the numerous cutting-edge approaches being taken to help IPOS evolve from an administrative registry to an innovation agency. Finally, on page 29, senior representatives from the German Intellectual Property Office (DPMA), the Intellectual Property Office of Peru (Indecopi), the French National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) and the Ecuadorian National Service of Intellectual Rights (SENADI) reveal how they have levelled up in the past 12 months.

In short, this section takes a deep dive into how innovation is shaping the way that all IP offices operate – and what users can expect in the years ahead.