Intellectual property & trade secrets

Intellectual property (IP) generates business opportunities and should be considered one of the fundamental pillars of the EU competitiveness. Raising awareness of the benefits that IP offers must be a priority. Our work in this area covers several intellectual property rights, from patents to trademarks & designs. BusinessEurope is a respected and recognised European industry voice at both political and technical levels in different fora. BusinessEurope is the only business organisation having the observer status at the governing bodies of the European Patent Organisation (EPO) in Munich and is strongly engaged with the work of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), also benefiting from a permanent observer status in the latter governing bodies. Beyond ‘European’ cooperation activities, BusinessEurope is working closely with stakeholder representatives and IP offices from the largest intellectual property jurisdictions in the world, i.e. from the US, Japan, China and South Korea in the framework of the IP5.

IP-intensive industries generate around 47% of EU GDP (EUR 6.4 trillion), directly employ more than 61 million people in the EU, and generate another 20 million jobs in industries that supply goods and services to IPR-intensive industries. Taking indirect jobs into account, the total number of IPR-related jobs rises to 82 million (39.4%). Intellectual property (IP) is key to driving innovation which is vital for ensuring that the European Union can maintain its global leading role in developing sustainable solutions to cope with mutual challenges. These include issues around consumer safety, urbanisation, digitalisation, climate change, lack of food and clean water, a growing ageing population and health issues.

Trade secrets are valuable pieces of information for a company, that are treated as confidential and give that company a competitive advantage, e.g. formulation of a substance, marketing study, list of clients, inventions prior to patenting. The protection of trade secrets should be ensured in Europe, and it should not be undermined by other EU initiatives not related to trade secrets. Cybertheft has become a serious problem for businesses and further action is definitely needed in this field.