I am not a politician and therefore do not think in votes.
But I am an inventor and therefore I think in terms and conditions. To be more specific, the conditions in which Danish innovators, inventors and creative people alike have to work under in Denmark.
I am also co-founder of the Inventors’ association in Denmark – www.Opfinderforeningen.dk . An association that does not carry a political message, nor does it receive any forms of funding from the public or private organisations.
I often hear inventors referred to as: “Gyro Gearloose”, “Ole opfinder”, “Einstein” or “the re-inventor of the wheel”. This is a remnant from ancient times, where you believed that the local village idiot and the inventor was one and the same person.
Some people have a perception of the inventor being an old man with semi long gray hair and wearing a white doctor’s coat while working in his laboratory with something “normal” people would not understand. Next thing you know, an explosion happens in the lab and…Ta daa – something new has been created!
Nothing could be further from the truth!
Also a job
To be an inventor today is a job like being a smithy, farmer or MSc (Master of Science), and who says a woman or even a child for that matter can’t be an inventor?
To be an inventor is to try and find new ways, new solutions, to be creative and perhaps find new concepts that fulfil new needs constantly created in the industrial world, agriculture, fishing, hospitals or maybe even in our own homes.
To be an inventor is a job that should be taken seriously like any other type of job. For any completed work you want to receive a payment or salary. Naturally, the same wishes goes for the inventor.
Often, he or she has been working for months, maybe even years and spent the equity of the house or has knocked the credit limit in the bank through the roof, just to get his or her idea through to patenting. A patent which is expensive to get issued and maintained through the years. Therefore the inventor wants a salary or payment for his efforts and can achieve this by selling his patent or get royalties of his idea.
But it is a frightfully long and hard road from the first realisation of the idea to get payment for the finished product in today’s reality.
When the light bulb is turned off
Not only is it a long and hard process, but as it is now, it is almost a rule that the better an idea is, seen from an economical perspective, the more copy cats and idea thieves there will be on the scene. What this leads to of law suits, money consumption, psychological terror and family tragedies, is hard to describe; But this is the naked truth. Inventors don’t have the legal rights they should be entitled to.
There are horrible examples about inventors having their ideas copied and stolen from big capital asset concerns.
Successive law suits – some running more than 30 years – have milked inventors who have had their ideas copied or stolen for economical and human resources to the extent that you would think these cases could be brought to the Court of Human Rights!
Working conditions
There are several things that would change the working conditions for the Danish inventors, if Denmark chooses to be part of the European Patent Court.
The baseline of the European Patent Court is that a patent case cannot last more than a year without finalising a resolve/resolution.
For the inventor, who has ended up in a bind/pickle/trial with for instance a copyist, the European Patent Court system shortens the time factor to such a degree that the inventor is still able to keep his eye on the ball and make plans for the near future, and move on.
Another part is that the judges will have a high degree of technical insight, which means that they themselves are capable of evaluating the technical level of an invention, without having to consult i.e. estimate, survey or inspection organisations or manufactures of a similar product. A verdict will therefore take a more technical part into account rather than just the judicial aspect, which will be a clear advantage for the inventor.
An additional significant part for inventors, is the fact that taking out a European patent will be a lot cheaper than it is today. Again, a huge advantage for the inventor, because when he or she is on the brink of taking out a patent, huge amounts of money has already been spent on developing the idea.
I fight for this
Overall, an agreement to the European Patent Court will give the inventor a far better protection against copyists and a far greater security. An immediate consequence of this will presumably be that noticeably more people dare jump into realising ideas that have been stowed away in the desk drawer for so long, like Sleeping Beauty. Exactly because it will become a lot easier and trouble free to get your idea secured and efficiently protected.
The truth about the ideas in the Danish desk drawers is in fact that there are plenty of them. If a yes to the European Patent court can get at least some of these ideas out of the drawer and realised for the benefit of more jobs, production and the foundation for welfare society in Denmark, then you can say that we, as a nation, are well on our way.
In Denmark we annually spend billions of tax money for the development of ideas. These big amounts we have to consider not only as an expense or cost, but in far greater extent as an investment in the future and future incomes. When we at the same time have the opportunity to protect these ideas thoroughly, then it is not hard to vote yes on the 25th of May.
In our schools we teach our children and youths to be creative, inventive and innovative, in addition to teaching them how to function in a more and more globalised society. For example: teaching them English, Spanish or Chinese.
As a mother, I take great pride in teaching my teenage daughter how to protect herself. She has to learn how to protect herself against pocket thieves, to protect her belongings, to protect herself in traffic and even protect herself if she has sexual relations. It is an important part of life, to get protection against issues that can threaten.
I see it as a distinguished duty as an inventor to inform every Danish voter of the importance of why we need to vote yes to be part of the European Patent Court. We do it to protect the Danish people and Denmark.
- To protect the inventor.
- To protect the idea.
- To protect a future income.
If you vote yes, you help contribute to our, and certainly our descendants’, possibilities to benefit from the ideas created now and in the future, none the least.
I hope with these words, to have sown a seed for the Danish people to vote yes on May 25th and thereby contribute to good opportunities and future prosperities for our children and our mutual posterity.
It has been said so often, that the most important commodity the Danish people have, is the one situated right behind the frontal bone.
Never has this statement been more current than now, close to May 25th.
So therefore: Vote YES to the European Patent Court.