According to the figures gathered from the Patent Observatory of the Consorzio Politecnico Innovazione of the Milan Polytechnic, in year 2000 Italy registered at the EPO, the European Patent Office, 3.625 patents, which is about 2,3% of the European total, with a productivity of 4,8 patents every million inhabitant, a result which differs greatly from the 17,9 of the European average. And the situation gets worse if we look at more specialised nations and high technology sectors: the difference is even greater, if we consider that Finland registers 80,4 patents per million inhabitants whereas the United States register 29,5.

Despite the trend constantly growing in the past few years, the number of deposited patents in Italy is still distant from those of European countries. From the figures that have emerged just one considerations emerges: In Italy there is little patenting done.
Reasons are mostly to do with the poor innovation within the Italian system, the cost of the patent, where the cost for patenting is too high compared to the cost sustained for the research, the poor evaluation of business potential for the patent, and the difficult legal protection, whereby starting a legal cause for breaking a patent law is complicated and costly. (image taken from Wayphoto.net).

July.2002

In association with Impresando, the portal for enterprising in Italy