Stoccolma per Marianne – Which innovation is worthy of patent protection in the era of incremental innovation?

Abstract

Long, long “gone are the days” of the XIX parameter of a ‘flash of genius’ to define the qualitative level of an innovation deserving of a patent. That parameter went out, as known, due to the evolution of modern R&D dynamics, chiefly consisting (unlike the groundbreaking ones of the first industrial revolution) in painstaking processes made up of progressive even small but quite costly steps carried on by trial and error (J. Reichman) by complex teams of specialist researchers, working with sophisticate computing and scientific equipment. No wonder, then, that a clear tendency emerged and became established in favor of lenient criteria of patentability, so as to include the fruits of incremental innovation.