Innovation Europe > News > Innovation EU Vol1-1 > Supporting innovation in Europe - ZENIT GmbH

Founded in 1984, our objective back then was to help the regional economy overcome the structural change from heavy industry to modern technologies and productionoriented services. Today, our overall mission is to stimulate innovation for our clients, technology-oriented small and medium-sized enterprises, clusters, research institutions and universities, so that good ideas are turned into good business – both at home and abroad.

Europe is our priority: as NRW.Europa together with the NRW.BANK, one of the largest nodes of the Enterprise Europe Network launched by the European Commission in early 2008, we support our clientele with advice about Europe. This covers legislation, information about countries, markets and sectors, assistance in public procurement, and the development and realisation of internationalisation strategies. An important aspect here is the mediation of partnerships for technology transfer, commercial projects and joint R&D activities, eg within the 7th Framework Programme, between German organisations and potential partners in other regions of the EU and beyond. ZENIT helps its clients to improve their competitiveness, for example through enhanced innovation management and access to finance, as well as supporting regional, national and EU decision- makers by supplying feedback from the marketplace, which flows above all into future SME, innovation and technology policy.

Over the years, ZENIT has implemented numerous projects and programmes on behalf of public-sector clients to promote and encourage innovation, technological development and business growth, as well as compiling studies and evaluation reports. Thus ZENIT was one of the pilot Euro Info Centres of the European Commission set up in 1987 as well as one of the first Innovation Relay Centres launched in 1995, continuing its participation in these important business-support networks throughout the entire duration of the programmes up until 2007/2008. Our products include publications, seminars, workshops, training sessions and conferences, delegation visits to our own and other regions and partner mediation events. The latter are mostly staged against the backdrop of major trade exhibitions and focussed on specific sectors.

ZENIT is namely also Chair of the Sector Group Environment, an interest grouping comprising over 50 organisations throughout Europe whose activities display a special focus on the topic of the environment and which have special expertise and contacts to enterprises in this field. ZENIT also chairs the Sector Group Security, and is a member of several other groups, notably the Sector Group Food and the Healthcare Sector Group.

ZENIT’s shareholders are the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, a consortium of banks and the ZENIT Netzwerk e.V., an association of some 200 organisations from the region, mostly SMEs. This structure, termed a Public Private Partnership, allows ZENIT access to all significant players in the region, ie the worlds of politics, finance and business. The ZENIT team comprises some 50 people, mostly with degrees, diplomas and doctorates in engineering or economics disciplines and many years’ business experience under their belt.

“Much has changed over the last 25 years,” says Peter Wolfmeyer, ZENIT’s Managing Director. “Our clients are focussing their attention more and more on other parts of Europe and expanding their activities, whether in the area of business, technological innovation, or research, beyond the region’s borders. That’s why ZENIT too has evolved from a regional centre for innovation support to a ‘European agency’ offering a wide spectrum of EU-related consulting and information services, especially the mediation of transnational partnerships. Today the three main pillars of our business are ‘Europe’, ‘Funding’, and ‘Technology and Innovation’ and we regard ourselves as the first point of call in North Rhine-Westphalia for incoming expressions of interest.”

Meeting new challenges

With the advent of a knowledge-based society and globalised economy, the world’s major patent offices all face a steady rise in the number of applications and growing workloads. Between 1999 and 2008, the number of patent applications filed at the EPO grew by an average of 5.7% per year. The Office, originally created to deal with 30,000 applications a year, received 146,5000 applications in 2008, amounting to 400 every single day.

The emergence of new and rapidly developing technologies has put the patent system to the test. The EPO is fully aware of the growing public discussion about the limits of the patent system and recognises that for some technologies, alternative ways of handling intellectual property such as open access, open source or creative commons might also be suited to encouraging innovation.

To secure the value of European patents, the EPO puts strong emphasis on safeguarding the quality of its patents, aiming to ensure there is always a clear “inventive step” before granting a patent. The EPO’s strict application of its procedures results in patents which are not too broad, are enforceable and stand up well to legal challenges. The Office also continually strives to improve the efficiency of its processes and cut delays since pending applications can hinder innovation by creating legal uncertainties for both the creators of an invention and any potential competitors.

Co-operation for innovation

The EPO co-operates closely with its partners in national and European institutions and European industry to ensure that the patent system continues to support innovation in the spirit of the Lisbon Strategy. The Office backs plans to establish a “Community patent” that would be valid in all EU countries and has provided input to the discussion on the design of a central European patent litigation system to accompany it. The EPO’s contacts are especially close with the European Parliament and European Commission.

For example, the EPO and Commission have launched a joint project called ip4inno that provides teaching tools for experts to explain IP to the public; the EPO is the Commission’s implementing partner for the E16m programme to strengthen intellectual property rights in China (“EU-China IPR2”); and, on request, the Office has provided support to the Commission for its recent Pharmaceutical Sector Inquiry.

The European Inventor Awards

Behind every great invention is a gifted individual or individuals. Since 2006 the European Patent Office and European Commission have honoured inventors from all technical fields and walks of life, that have made an extraordinary contribution to science and technology in Europe, and to improving people’s daily lives. The annual European Inventor Award is offered in four categories: Industry, SMEs/research, Non-European countries and Lifetime Achievement. The list of winners includes Germany’s Peter Grünberg, who was honoured with a European Inventor Award in 2006 (before going on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2007) for identifying the giant magnetoresistance effect (GMR), which allowed a 50-fold increase in the usable storage density of hard disks. The fruits of his research in information technology are now to be found in nearly all commercially available PCs, digital cameras and MP3 players. Dr Catia Bastoli and her team from Novamont S.p.a. in Italy won in the SMEs/Research category in 2007 for inventing biodegradable plastics obtained from starch, a renewable raw material. These plastics are used worldwide, for instance in eco-friendly refuse bags. Belgium’s Eric de Clercq won a Lifetime Achievement award in 2008 for his contributions to antiviral treatment, including the development of the drug cocktail for AIDS which has become the gold standard of our day. In 2009, American oncologist Brian Druker and Swiss medicinal chemist Jürg Zimmermann took home the Industry award for the invention of an effective drug to combat chronic myelogenous leukaemia, providing unprecedented rates of recovery for that disease. The 2010 award winners will be announced in Madrid at a joint EPO/European Commission patent forum dedicated to innovation in renewable energies in April 2010.

For more information, visit: www.epo.org/european-inventor

To secure the future success of the patent system, the EPO has initiated a policy of co-operation with other patent offices in Europe and also at global level. The world’s five largest patent offices, the US, Japan, China, Korea and the EPO, have agreed to collaborate closely to develop a strategy to eliminate unnecessary duplication of efforts. As many companies operate globally, a large number of applications filed with the various patent offices relate to one and the same invention. Work-sharing is therefore key to tackling the global workload in the patent system in order to keep it reliable and effective into the future.

For more information, visit: www.epo.org

ZENIT GmbH
Mr Peter Wolfmeyer
Managing Director
Bismarckstrasse 28
D-45470 Mülheim an der Ruhr
Tel: +49 (0) 208 30004-0
www.zenit.de
Secretariat e-mail: so@zenit.de