EPO and European Innovation Council strengthen ties to advance European breakthrough innovation

27 June 2023

The European Patent Office (EPO) and the European
Innovation Council (EIC) haven taken a further step to deepen their cooperation
by jointly supporting the development of breakthrough technologies and the
innovation ecosystem in Europe. EPO President António Campinos and Jean-David
Malo, Director of the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency
(EISMEA), in charge of implementing the European Innovation Council and other
SME-related programmes, have signed a letter of intent to strengthen
operational ties between both organisations.

The letter of intent commits the parties to provide
assistance and support to innovators
and entrepreneurs across Europe in turning their ideas into products and
services, leveraging the EPO’s expertise. The EPO and EIC will also seek to
increase patent valorisation and commercialisation by innovative SMEs,
disruptive start-up and spin-off companies, and research organisations and
universities through awareness-raising, outreach, training initiatives and
support services.

EPO President
Campinos underlined that „this collaboration reflects the EPO’s ongoing
commitment to support the global and European patent network and embolden
Europe’s innovation ecosystem“. Director Malo said: „Deep tech and
knowledge-intensive companies rely on intangible assets, such as patents, for
growth. By ensuring that our stakeholders – both researchers and innovative
SMEs – pay due attention to the role and importance of such intangible assets,
we can help them to realise the full potential of their ideas.“

The European Innovation Council is Europe’s flagship
innovation programme to identify, develop and scale up breakthrough
technologies and game changing innovations The EIC has been established under
the EU Horizon Europe programme. It has a budget of €10.1 billion to support
game changing innovations throughout the lifecycle from early stage research,
to proof of concept, technology transfer, and the financing and scale up of
start-ups and SMEs. As cooperation between the EPO and EISMEA deepens, the EPO
will deploy the expertise of its domain experts across several departments,
including patent examination, the EPO Patent Academy and Patent Knowledge to
support the work of the EIC, including its Programme Managers. The
collaboration will focus on three key areas of activity:

• Sharing insights on the technological
  competitiveness of the EU in light of patent trend analysis and mapping
  patenting activities.,
• Education and training activities for
  EIC staff and beneficiaries with a view to improve patent valorisation and
  commercialisation by researchers and businesses and
• Supporting
  the EIC’s evaluation to identify the projects with the highest potential for
  impact based on technological novelty, inventive merit and proposed future
  strategy.

The EPO Observatory on Patents and Technology will also be a
key partner for EISMEA in deepening the understanding of start-up patent
activity.