1. Introduction
Welcome to the first volume, and the first editorial of World Patent Information in 2022. Over the last 24 months we have all experienced great changes in our lives and disruptions caused by covid-19 and response to the pandemic continue to impact our lives and economies. Because of covid-imposed travel restrictions, more and more tasks, discussions, trainings, appointments and meetings are undertaken virtually, and remotely. This trend is surely here to stay, as the need to mitigate against climate change by reducing carbon footprints is also impacting the drive for virtual meetings and transactions. The technologies underpinning digitalisation have improved correspondingly quickly, through increased R&D and potentially this leads to increased IP filings and further innovations.
Indeed an increase in IP filings is indicated in the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) review of IP filings for 2021 [1]. This report confirms increased global filings of patents, trademarks and designs, in particular Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications grew by 0.9% in 2021, with 54% of applications filed first in Asia.
World Patent Information is particularly interested in how technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data and digitization, will impact the IP field itself. This is a topic for a new WIPO policy unit, Intellectual Property and Frontier Technologies [2], which we are closely following.
Through the covid times, WPI, in common with many journals, has received a high number of manuscripts, for which we are grateful. We have not however waived the peer review process at WPI, we continue to believe that it is important to maintain a high quality standard for our readers, even if sometimes this delays publication. It's rare that an article is so time-critical that it needs to be published immediately.
World Patent Information strives to publish outstanding research articles and review articles which teach on theoretical and practical research in IP information, IP processing and IP management matters. Articles must be written in a clear style of formal English, to ensure the novelty and learnings are readily accessible by the widest range of our readers, researchers and practioners who rely on World Patent Information.
WPI does encourage papers which highlight current trends and topics of interest, as well as fundamental research. A highlight in this volume is a paper from Luca Facciola; ’ Searching and analyzing patent-relevant Covid-19 information’ which provides valuable tips and insights into patent information and non-patent (or scientific) literature, which will help those researching and searching for prior art in this field. It also serves as a reference on the response to the pandemic from the publishing and life sciences industries. Luca Facciola will be presenting on this topic at the PIUG Biotechnology conference in March 2022.
Do look out for articles which WPI will shortly be publishing relating to the high profile global impact FRAND, (standard) essential patents, and competition law legal judgements and their implications.
In addition WPI publishes news from the patent offices for instance when new laws and procedures will have an impact on IP prosecution and IP information. Recent examples being the article from INPI in this volume outlining the Pacte Law, which introduces the inventive step requirement to French patent applications, the option to file provisional patent applications, the utility certificate, and an opposition procedure for patents. Look out for news on the EU Unitary Patent administered by the EPO which should finally come to fruition in 2022.
2. WPI people: editorial advisory board and reviewers
We have a new publisher at Elsevier, Simon Jones, we editors are working with Simon on improving the journal's Impact Factor so we can attract even more high quality papers for the journal. Our plans are to list with Clarivate in two additional categories - Engineering, and Management in addition to Library and Information Science.
WPI has a strong editorial advisory board with twenty eight members each supporting the journal by reviewing, writing and acting as our ambassadors at events they attend.
I would like to particularly thank our current Board members for their ongoing support, in particular Florina Priori for continuing the administration of the WPI test collection on Zenodo [3]. Susan Bates for continuing to compile the literature listing for us each quarter, the literature listing has a new format highlighting particular articles of interest in each section. The sections reflect WPI topics of interest, and full references can be found in the ‘data in brief’. Guido Moradei for guest editing the special issue on industrial design intellectual property and information retrieval, Frank Tietze, and Alfred Radauer for their work on forthcoming special issues with Martin Moehrle. In 2021 Alfred Radauer, Bjorn Juergens, Harish Chandran Avaronnan and Paul Stieg joined the editorial advisory board, we welcome their expertise and contributions.
Finally, and most importantly, thank you to all our reviewers, whether you review regularly, or only manage to review occasionally, all of your contributions matter a great deal to us. By giving your time, and most importantly your expertise, you help to shape our publication by ensuring the journal and the authors achieve the best article possible, and enabling the research, and knowledge to be shared more widely.
3. Special issues in preparation
World Patent Information has two special issues in preparation, The Management of Intellectual Property in Times of Rapid Institutional Changes, guest edited by Martin Bader, Frank Tietze, Alfred Radauer and “TechMining at digital crossroads – advances in technological foundations and application in key areas of interest”, guest edited by Rich Corken, UKIPO, and Alfred Radauer, Krems University.
Both special issues were linked with virtual conferences held in 2021, the first with the “IP Management” track of the R&D Management Conference, held in July 2021 and the second evolved from the IP information analytics discussion during the 11th Global TechMining Conference in November 2021. The Tech mining SI is open for submissions until the end of April 2022. Contact the guest editors for more information.
Special issues allow us to group papers together on a particular topic to have a strong impact.
4. Forthcoming patent information conferences and training courses
WPI also ceased publication of the bi-annual trainings and conferences diary, partly because with most events happening virtually, or not taking place it seemed less useful as a diary. We will review this situation in 2022, we are also interested in improving coverage of IP related education and training.
In person or virtual conferences are beginning to appear on our agendas again, and I hope to meet you at an event in 2022.
I along with some of our Board members (Nigel Clarke, Wanise Barossa, Tony Trippe, Roya Ghafele are participating in the PIUG (Patent Information Users Group) annual meeting which is being held for the first time with two streams, one in person and one virtual [4] in May 2022.
Another event of interest to WPI readers scheduled for September 2021 is The European Policy for Intellectual Property (EPIP) hybrid conference. It is being organised by Frank Tietze, and others at the University of Cambridge and is supported by three patent offices, UKIPO, EPO and WIPO. The conference aims to stimulate original IP research regarding global challenges and climate change and is particularly keen to present research on open approaches to IP and licensing.