Your Issues in the News

Keep track of the issues that matter to innovative small businesses and what ACT and its members are saying about them.

Commentaries and Op-Eds

A wish-list from innovative SMEs | European Voice

Members of ACT's Board describe the specific steps they would like to see the Spanish EU Presidency take in order to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe

Lost in Translation | European Patent Office

Have you ever stopped a minute to wonder what is behind Apple’s iPod? With more than 141 million units sold throughout the world, it has become the most successful digital media player and an icon for an entire generation. It must have taken Apple’s engineers years to develop this cash cow, right? Wrong. The iPod was developed in just six months, faster than any other major Apple product. And its technology wasn’t invented in Apple’s headquarters in California, but brought in from the outside. The innovators behind the iPod were small businesses that licensed or sold their software to Apple. Such deals can be very lucrative for inventors — provided they have protected their technology as their intellectual property (IP). But would the story of the iPod have been possible in Europe, too? Good question. Sadly, European tech start-ups develop more slowly than their peers in Silicon Valley, partly because inventors struggle to exploit their innovations. The fragmentation of the European patent system has made protecting IP in Europe onerously expensive.

Will Apple's new gizmo really go on ... | The Guardian

Sweden's 21st-Century Pirates | Wall Street Journal

It sounds like a joke: Some Swedes have formed a political group called the Pirate Party. But avast, ye lily-livered sprogs! Like the Vikings of yore, these pirates are out for plunder -- only it's intellectual property they're after, and they aim to pillage through the law rather than lawlessness.

Stifling competition in Europe | International Herald Tribune

How do we Europeans become more innovative and competitive? According to a recent European Commission study, we are already 20 years behind the U.S. information technology industry, and we are spending a paltry 1.9 percent of our combined gross domestic product on research and development, far less than the Americans or the Japanese.

Virtuous circles cost big money | European Voice

US President George Bush’s pledge, in his State of the Union address, to double federal spending on research initiatives to $50bn should give Europeans pause for thought. So should the just-released 2005 UNESCO Science Report. Asia – led by China – is now close to spending one-third of all the funds committed globally to research and development (R&D). Meanwhile the latest figures show that in the EU the top 500 private R&D spenders actually reduced their R&D investment by around 2%. Outside the EU the top 500 spent 3.9% more.

GPL 3.0: A bonfire of the vanities? | CNET

I often find myself comparing the strife and pathos of the information technology industry to Greek and Shakespearean tragedies. Yet, the current debate on GPL 3.0 has me thinking back to my high school European history class.

News Coverage

EU needs to complete single market | EurActiv.com

Fragmentation of the EU's single market and particularly its patent system represent major obstacles to innovation, which is mainly driven by SMEs, Jonathan Zuck, president of an association representing more than 3,000 small and mid-sized IT firms from around the world, told EurActiv in an interview.

EU patent system impedes innovation | EurActiv.com

The lack of a Europe-wide Community patent poses "incredible challenges" for small businesses and undermines the EU's goal of becoming the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, according to a new study. The existing intellectual protection (IP) system, under which companies have to file a patent in every EU member state, is "a telling example” of the Union's fractured regulatory framework, argues the study presented at last week's IP Summit in Brussels. Businesses had invested high hopes in the French EU Presidency's ability to broker an EU-wide agreement on a Community patent , proposed by the European Commission at the end of 2003. But differences over sensitive translation arrangements have proven insumountable for the time being (EurActiv 02/12/08). Under the current system, filing a patent in Europe can take twice as long (44 months) than in the US and Japan, while the cost (of a European patent) is almost five times higher than in the US (€10,330) and three times greater than in Japan (€16,450), the study shows. To bypass the EU regulatory framework, many innovative companies and especially SMEs end up "skipping" the European market by applying for a patent in the US, Jonathan Zuck of the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) told EurActiv.

SMEs' vision for "innovation utopia" | CORDIS

A new report describes a vision of the perfect environment to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe's SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). Entitled 'Dreaming of EUtopia: constructing a vision of an entrepreneurial idyll', the report was produced by the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT), which represents the interest of SMEs working in the ICT (information and communication technologies) sector worldwide. It was launched at the Intellectual Property (IP) Summit in Brussels, Belgium on 4 December. Instead of setting out policy recommendations designed to boost innovation, the report outlines a vision of the ideal 'habitat' for entrepreneurship and innovation against which policy proposals in a range of fields can be judged. The report is the result of research and interviews with over 350 entrepreneurs from the ICT sector across Europe. 'It was immediately apparent that much innovation policy was developed in a piecemeal way with no holistic vision of how the different policy instruments worked together,' commented Dr Tim Vorley of the University of Cambridge in the UK, who led the research along with Dr Tim Round of the UK's University of Birmingham.

SMEs hail new IPR strategy | EurActiv.com

Despite the absence of concrete legislative initiatives on issues such as the Community patent, businesses have praised the Commission's new strategy to better protect patents and trademarks – an area particularly crucial for smaller companies. A key element in the Commission's new strategy, according to the President of the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) Jonathan Zuck, is the suggestion that small businesses would be able to avoid costly legal proceedings in court to resolve patent disputes. Instead, the Commission says it will look into the establishment of "alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms," which it acknowledges could "substantially improve" the settlement of disputes. Such a mechanism would be "key for smaller players", allowing all parties to settle disputes more efficiently, said Zuck.

Copyright, Interop Activity at EU | Intllectual Property Watch

The European Commission has adopted a new IPR strategy ensuring that all EU states adopt its Enforcement Directive and seeking stronger global enforcement of IP rights, including an anti-counterfeiting treaty. The Commission said it will prepare the ground for Europe’s accession to the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks and work toward the harmonisation of international patent law. The strategy also calls for the Commission to participate actively in international talks aimed at helping the developing world realise the potential of their industrial property rights. The plan garnered praise from Association for Competitive Technology President Jonathan Zuck. Small business inventors, who drive growth and job creation in the EU, need high quality patents, he said. Also this week, the Commission published for comment a draft of its revised EIF. The framework is intended to encourage governments to increase information-sharing by, among other things, adopting open standards and specifications (IPW, European Policy, 2 July 2008). The draft is a more balanced and practical effort to achieve interoperability between the information and communications technologies of European governments, according to Zuck. Instead of prescribing strict technology mandates, the draft heads in the direction of focussing on the goals of interoperability, he said.

EU publishes draft interop framework | Intellectual Property Watch

This week, the European Commission published for comment a draft of its revised European Interoperability Framework (EIF). The framework is intended to encourage governments to increase information-sharing by, among other things, adopting open standards and specifications. The draft is a more balanced and practical effort to achieve interoperability between the information and communications technologies of European governments, according to Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) President Jonathan Zuck. Instead of prescribing strict technology mandates, the draft heads in the direction of focussing on the goals of interoperability, he said.

EU industrial property rights strategy | Intellectual Property Watch

The European Commission this week adopted a new strategy on industrial property rights. Industrial property rights include not only patents and trademarks but also industrial designs, geographical indications and plant variety rights, the Commission said in a Communication published on 16 July. Talks are already underway on a Community patent and a patent litigation system, but the Commission said it wants a high-quality industrial property rights system that complements the patent regime. High quality rights support businesses, facilitate knowledge transfer and boost efforts to fight counterfeiting and piracy, it said. Among other actions, the Commission said it will launch a comprehensive study on patent quality to determine the risks of low quality rights, and study the extent of problems with unused patents. The plan garnered praise from Association for Competitive Technology President Jonathan Zuck. Small business inventors, who drive growth and job creation in the EU, need high quality patents, he said.

Anger as IP sacrificed for interop | Managing Intellectual Property

Managing Intellectual Property reports that "[o]n June 25, the European Commission held the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) Info Day in Brussels, where it presented features of the newly updated EIF, which states that only IP-free standards can be used to achieve interoperability in e-Government services. The EIF is a document that defines the general rules and principles for collaboration on interoperability between member states and EU institutions. The Commission has narrowed the focus of the EIF making it more favorable to open source software. It even excludes programs such as Bluetooth because they charge a small licensing fee. The software industry has expressed strong concerns about the European Commission's revised draft EIF and believes that it will hurt small tech start-ups that rely on patent protection to survive. Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology, said the EU scored an own goal with the document. 'It aims to facilitate digital cooperation among EU administrations, but in effect it excludes many well-established technologies from being used for e-Government services due to a narrow definition of open standards' [Zuck said]. [...] Zuck added that commercial software must be allowed to compete on a level playing field with other types of software. 'Government ought to buy software on its merits and not through categorical preferences. To demand anything else is to impose one business model over another.'"

SME bodies comment on Small Business Act | Agence Europe

Brussels, 27/06/2008 (Agence Europe) - European small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) organisations have reacted en masse to the presentation, on Wednesday 25 June, of the Small Business Act for Europe, a Community action plan to give a fillip to EU SME policy. They lay particular emphasis on the follow-up of the measures announced and the application of the principles, such as “Think small first," in drawing up policies at national and European levels. While all SME organizations welcomed the Act, the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) pointed out that "[t]he EU keeps dragging its feet about the Community Patent."

A Small Business Act for Europe | Agence Europe

Agence Europe today pointed out that "European small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) organisations have reacted en masse to the presentation, on Wednesday 25 June, of the Small Business Act for Europe, a Community action plan to give a fillip to EU SME policy. [...] While all welcome the European initiative, SME organisations point, nonetheless, to some gaps." The Association for Competitive Technology, while supporting the idea of the Small Business Act, is disappointed that “[t]he EU keeps dragging its feet about the Community Patent. ”