Memo to the New Digital Agenda Commissioner
by Bruno van Pottelsberghe , Reinhilde Veugelers on 25 January 2010
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Category: POLICY CONTRIBUTIONS
Topics: Research, innovation and growth
Senior Resident Fellows Reinhilde Veugelers and Bruno van Pottelsberghe provide recommendations for the term of new Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes in this supplement to Bruegel's Memos to the New Commission: Europe's Economic Priorities 2010-2015. They argue that Kroes should move past a focus on infrastructure and concentrate more on ICT's potential to contribute to growth in the European Union. This should include a focus on emerging ICT products and services to helpl foster an ICT single market and more public support for R&D and innovation, through tailored programmes designed to aid high-risk innovative projects conceived by new ICT companies.
Cost Benefit Analysis of the Community Patent
by Bruno van Pottelsberghe on 23 December 2009
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Category: WORKING PAPERS
Topics: European and global governance, Research, innovation and growth
The creation of a European Community Patent (COMPAT) came a step closer this month when Sweden brokered a preliminary agreement on the issue. In this working paper, Senior Resident Fellow Bruno van Pottelsberghe uses simulations to take a look at the advantages, disadvantages, winners and losers from the creation of the COMPAT. He finds that it would drastically reduce the relative patenting costs for applicants while generating more income for the European Patent Office and increased savings for the business sector. He also explains that the lost of economic rents for patent attorneys, translators and lawyers specialised in patent litigation and the drop of controlling power for national patent offices may explain why there has been such resistance to the COMPAT thus far.
A Long March to an EU Patent?
by Bruno van Pottelsberghe on 17 December 2009
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Category: OPINION PIECES AND COLUMNS
Topics: Research, innovation and growth
Senior Resident Fellow Bruno van Pottelsberghe discusses the next steps policymakers need to take after EU industry ministers agreed on a package on 4 December that may pave the way for a European community patent (COMPAT). Discussing the effects of such a patent, van Pottelsberghe points to his recent working paper on the costs and benefits of the COMPAT and argues that national decision-makers must act so as not to get leapfrogged by China and other developing economies.
Kick-Starting the Green Innovation Machine
by Philippe Aghion, David Hemous, Reinhilde Veugelers on 09 December 2009
Category: OPINION PIECES AND COLUMNS
Topics: Climate change and energy, Research, innovation and growth
Senior Fellows Philippe Aghion and Reinhilde Veugelers, with Harvard researcher David Hemous, write about the need for government subsidies in encouraging 'green innovation' in an op-ed for Vox, the widely-read web portal for European economic policy research. Another, less data-focused version was also published in German business newspaper Handelsblatt (10 Dec). Both pieces was based off the authors' Policy Brief, "No Green Growth Without Innovation".
Science Business: Patent Failures
by Bruno van Pottelsberghe on 14 October 2009
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Category: OPINION PIECES AND COLUMNS
Topics: Research, innovation and growth
Resident Scholar Bruno van Pottelsberghe discusses the problems that the patent systems face in both the U.S. and Europe. In the States, the lax standards for patent applications has created an enormous backlog and quality has become an issue. In Europe, on the other hand, the patent system is too fragmented to work properly.