Issue description
A prerequisite for maintaining our competitiveness in the global market is to protect investments in technology and product development by patents. A major part of investments in R&D are directed to software-related technologies, systems and components for products. Patents must protect these investments in order to create the basis for a sustainable future development.
Important innovations in the automotive area with software as an enabling technology have created advanced engine control systems, brake and suspension control systems, collision warning systems, driver drowsiness warning systems, adaptive cruise control systems, airbag control systems, fuel consumption and exhaust gas control systems. However, these are only few examples of a general trend in technology development. Even traditional engineering companies are forced to use software technologies to a vastly increasing extent in order to make their products fit for the future thereby securing their competitiveness in the global market.
The current patent system in Europe, in particular the European Patent Convention and the practice of the European Patent Office, is well balanced and has served the European industry very well. This is true in all branches and throughout the past 25 years where the European Patent Office has granted thousands of patents on computer implemented inventions. Patent protection in Europe is restricted to technical solutions while programs for computers “as such” and business methods or other non-technical methods are excluded from patent protection. This system in Europe is completely different from the patent system in the USA. In Europe both large and small companies and even Open Source companies have been and will be able to exist and to develop their businesses side by side without any major problems.
Impact on the Volvo Group
Volvo - one of the worlds leading providers of commercial transport solutions - is active in the area of trucks, buses, construction equipment, aero, marine and industrial applications, and in financial services. Volvo produces transport related hard and soft products of superior quality, safety and environmental care for demanding customers.
Volvo Group’s position
Volvo welcomes the Council’s common position, which enables European industry to protect its investments in software-related technologies. This will secure European competitiveness in the global market, without unreasonably limiting the existence and further development of alternative models as for instance Open Source.
The Council’s common position ensures that the principles of the European Patent Convention will be implemented also in the national patent laws of the Member States thereby creating a transparent system of harmonized patent laws throughout the whole European Union.
An abolishment of patent protection of computer-implemented inventions in the European Union would have a devastating effect on the competitiveness of the European industry in general, and for the automotive industry in particular:
- Innovations will no longer be subject to patent and will be exposed targets for copying,
- The pace of innovations in Europe in the area of software-related technologies will slow down considerably as investments in innovative technologies will no longer pay off. This leads to that investments outside Europe will increase.
- The European industry will loose considerable market shares in their home markets in Europe to their American and Asian competitors without gaining any on their markets since patent protection of computer-implemented inventions is still possible in these countries.
Public affairs, March 15, 2005