The Cabinet of Ministers has taken note of the informative report “On further action in the field of improving the quality of Latvian national patents” prepared by the Latvian Patent Office (LPO) and supported further action lines and activities proposed therein. The report, based on the data from the LPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the European Patent Office (EPO), assesses the Latvian patent system and innovation competitiveness. The report also summarizes and analyses the results of a pilot project on support activities for Latvian patent applicants, as well as the impact on the activities of Latvian applicants in patenting inventions.
In 2016, in order to improve the quality of national patents and provide support to Latvian patent applicants wishing to protect their inventions internationally, the LPO began to implement a pilot project on providing free patent searches in cooperation with the EPO. Moreover, in 2019, within the framework of the pilot project, the LPO introduced additional support activities for national patent applicants to start an international patent procedure, namely the possibility of recovering the fee for filing an international patent application (PCT procedure at WIPO) and support in the procedure for obtaining a European patent.
The results of the pilot project show that Latvian patent applicants welcome the opportunity to obtain a free patent search provided by EPO experts, which is requested on average for 36% of patent applications. It is worth mentioning that most active users of this opportunity are small and medium-sized enterprises (~40%). In turn, Latvian applicants that received the EPO’s patent search report filed an international patent application in 56% of cases.
In general, the results of the activities provided within the pilot project are assessed positively in the report, considering the statistics and clients’ favourable feedback. However, it should be noted that improving the quality of Latvian patents and increasing their number is a complex issue that depends on many different external factors.
For example, the report indicates that Latvia's investment in research and development (R&D) lags behind the average level of the developed world and EU economies, which also affects Latvia's achievements in innovation and patent activities.
Analysing the Latvian innovation environment and competitiveness, the report indicates that the WIPO’ Global Innovation Index 2024 ranks Latvia 42nd, which is behind neighbouring countries Lithuania (35th) and Estonia (16th). In turn, the European Innovation Scoreboard identifies Latvia as a country with an emerging innovation system, which is the lowest assessment, ranking it 25th among 27 EU Member States.
Although certain positive trends have been observed in recent years, e.g., an increased number of European and international patent applications, Latvia still lags behind other EU Member States with similar gross domestic product per capita in terms of the number of patent applications.
The LPO’s report concludes with a proposal to continue the implementation of the pilot project by:
- ensuring further support;
- actively informing patent applicants about the available support activities;
- educating the public about the importance of intellectual property protection;
- strengthening cooperation with international organizations and Latvian higher education institutions.
The information report (in Latvian) can be found here.