How did you come to the job as president of the Netherlands Patent Office?

I have no background in IP: my background is in mathematics and economics and I have worked in research and information technology. Most recently I worked in the administration of telecommunications, in particular the auctioning of frequencies. So I only entered the IP world about two-and-a-half years ago when I was appointed to this position.

Why did you make the change?

I like to change jobs and do different kinds of things. Having worked in the political area, I was keen to go back to the world of research and deal directly with customers.

What does the job involve?

The job I'm doing started some years ago. After the EPC launched we had a much easier system of patent granting, focusing especially on SMEs. We made two observations about what we needed to do: first, to create a quick, easy and accessible system for SMEs and second, to create more awareness of the opportunities offered by the patent system for entrepreneurs.

We started to build an organisation that is very effective and professional and to create awareness of the patent system for private enterprise. We have seen some positive effects but it is a difficult system for people.

What are the positive effects you have seen?

The number of applications has been quite stable over the years. But our customer surveys show that satisfaction with service delivery has been very good. Moreover, a great number of SMEs know the Patent Office and what it is doing. This shows the extent to which people are aware of patents in the private sector.

How do you see your role?

I'm not here to sell patents. I'm happy if an entrepreneur knows about the system and decides, based on this knowledge, to patent or not to patent. The number of patents filed in the Netherlands has fallen since the EPC, but has been fairly stable at about 2500 to 3000 a year since the end of the 1990s. In total we have 120 staff members. Half of them work in patent granting and half in awareness-raising.

We have a non-examined patent granting system. So that means everybody who applies gets a patent – within one-and-a-half years. They also get a search report and a written opinion but there is no substantive examination. The system is fast and cheap and it seems to work well – not many cases go to court. Where there are disputes, they mostly get settled.

We also do some work for the UK IP Office and meet all the quality standards. Our Office has always had very high quality, as you would expect from one of the founders of the EPO.

Would you recommend the system to other countries?

I would certainly recommend the non-examining system for small countries. You can see that the national and European systems are complementary. Some companies use the Netherlands system as their first deposit and then go to the EPO. Other offices such as France, Italy and Belgium have adopted similar systems. It enables applicants to test the water and, if you need to, you can change the application before going to the EPO.

We think the high quality of work combined with the excellent juridical system in the Netherlands works very well for the Dutch market.

However, you would not expect the big offices to go down the same route as us. It would put great pressure on the legal system and the courts.

How do you think the problems, such as backlog, can be addressed in the big patent offices?

In my opinion, a lot more could be done in using the relevant work of other offices without undermining the responsibility of individual examiners. For example, one examiner can provide a search for an examiner in another office to look at. A lot of work in standardising can also be done, with databases and classification. There are a lot of pilot projects in this area.

Very sensitive discussions are going on about deferred examination to cut down the backlog and mutual recognition – where a search by one office is unconditionally accepted by another.

Raising the bar, as described by Alison Brimelow, is very helpful but extremely difficult. But you have to do it. You have to influence the behaviour of the examiners and there is a need for case law to support stricter behaviour by examiners. You can grow very slowly with small steps – it will take a long time.

What do you think of the proposed Community patent and IP court in Europe?

The question you have to ask is: how would it work – does it deliver quality? We want to see harmonisation, but the legal procedures must be of high quality.

With the Community patent, there are also language issues. Some solutions have been proposed but we are probably still not there. I don't know whether we will make progress during the next two EU presidencies.

The main problem is that the cost is very high for patent application and protection in Europe. So there has to be a trade-off between cost and quality. The private sector probably prefers to have high quality of patents and courts rather than a lower cost. There are a lot of questions remaining.

What trends do you expect in the future?

The number of patents is still growing, though the financial crisis may lead to some dip in the figures. But China, India and Korea will continue to grow greatly. That growth will place a heavy burden on the patent system. This large demand will create pressure from both industry and politicians to do something.

There is need for harmonisation in what gets patented or not in different offices. In the pharmaceutical, chemical and electrical worlds where we see the biggest growth, the discussions about quality are intense.

The patent system is a very complicated system, so there have to be trade-offs. For example the system can be used for goals it is not designed for. We need to block improper use of the system. Take divisional applications: some view these as creating too many opportunities for improper uses of the system which should be stopped.

What was it like coming to the IP world from another field?

In my former job, I learned to understand things very quickly – but I don't claim to understand everything. Patent work is a rather closed world: everybody knows each other. But the windows should be opened. The patent world should be more politically sensitive and open to the requirements of the private sector. For example, Alain Pompidou started to do that at the EPO by establishing good relations with Brussels, and Alison Brimelow has continued that work.

I think you should either be able to get acquainted with the system quickly or get good advisers who know the system. Taking things from outside can also be good. It is important to protect the needs of society given the growing number of patents. Otherwise, you lose perspective of the bigger picture.