In this article, written by Dr Pietro Moncada Paternò Castello on behalf of the European Commission, the distribution and exploitation of technological knowledge is analyzed. The main conclusions are the following:
In many countries, patents are owned by foreign companies. In contrast, in some countries the number of patents is much higher than local inventions.
Businesses from Germany and the United States are the most frequent foreign owners of patents invented in EU countries.
The concentration of patents between companies varies largely from one country to another.
Among the differences between local inventions and patent properties, as well as their concentration.