InnoWi Becomes Official Patent and Trade Mark Center for Bremen State

InnoWi GmbH - long-standing patent agency of Bremen State universities will assume the tasks of a state patent and trade mark center. It thus becomes an official cooperation partner of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office. InnoWi will be able to provide better support in the field of IP rights.

The state universities in the Bremen State have decided to restructure their company InnoWi to become a patent and trade mark center. This created a smooth transition from the former Patent- und Normenzentrum (PNZ) at Bremen City University of Applied Sciences to the new organization. Since 1983, the PNZ center at the Neustadtswall location of Bremen City University of Applied Sciences has been the contact point for companies and inventors with questions about IP rights and their own research.

InnoWi, in turn, is the point of contact for scientists in the region when it comes to assessing their inventions, assisting with patent applications, and marketing patents. Now their fields of expertise are being brought together in one center and the services are being expanded.

Complete Service Package for Universities and Institutes

“The aim is to provide a one-stop shop, offering and expertly implementing a complete service package, from patent protection to patent exploitation, for the University of Bremen and the universities of applied sciences in the Bremen State, as well as for science institutes in the region,” says the Director of Finance and Administration of the University of Bremen, Dr Martin Mehrtens. The President of Bremen City University of Applied Sciences, Professor Karin Luckey, adds: "Patent applications are a reliable indicator of the innovative strength of an economy. Universities play a significant role in this area. I expect that restructuring will have further synergy effects for our state A cooperation with InnoWi GmbH is already excellent."

IP rights have a long tradition in Bremen: The first marketable screw-in stud football boot was invented in Bremen. Carl F. W. Borgward, an inventor with numerous ideas and patents, was the founder of the automobile industry in Bremen, the patented decaffeinated coffee by Kaffee HAG became the basis for coffee processing, and Bremen brand names such as Jacobs, Beck’s, Hachez, and others, protected by trade marks, are world-famous.

Even today, scientists and established companies, but also young, innovative businesses develop impressive ideas and turn them into reality. However, the correct handling of IP rights has always been the basis for further success. This requires good support.

Patent Information Centers Promote New Ideas

Currently, more than 20 regional patent information centers throughout Germany providing comprehensive information on IP protection are recognized cooperation partners of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA). As one-stop shops for services in the field of IP protection, they support businesses, science, and start-ups in identifying, using, monitoring, and managing patents, utility models, trade marks, and designs, and in preventing infringement of third party rights. This makes them important figures in the German innovation landscape.

A recently signed cooperation agreement between InnoWi and the DPMA is the basis for future cooperation. This means that InnoWi assumes the role of a recognized partner of the DPMA, adding to its central range of services in the region of Bremen and north-western Lower Saxony. “We are pleased that InnoWi GmbH, a powerful organization, has joined our network of regional partners. This helps us to ensure that companies, universities and independent inventors in the Bremen region will remain well supplied with information on intellectual property and our services,” says DPMA President Cornelia Rudloff-Schäffer.

SMEs are Most Important Economic Drivers

More than 95% of all companies in Europe are small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 250 employees. They even account for 99.6% of companies and for just under 60% of the total workforce in Germany. This makes them the most important economic driver of our country.

According to a joint 2019 study by the European Patent Office and the European Union Intellectual Property Office, 45% of the gross domestic product in the EU is generated annually by IPR-intensive industries. They provide 63 million jobs (29% of all jobs in the EU). As the value added is higher in IPR-intensive industries than in other sectors of the economy, they pay their workers significantly higher wages. Wages in these industries in the EU are 47% higher than wages in other sectors. In patent-intensive industries, wages are even 72% higher (source: IPR-intensive industries and economic performance in the European Union – Industry-Level Analysis Report, September 2019).

Support for IP Rights and Their Exploitation

InnoWi GmbH has been supporting scientists in the region in all aspects of IP rights and the exploitation of IP rights since 2002. The team specializes in the assessment of inventions, IP research, and IP marketing. “Currently, we provide support with respect to 170 patents and patent applications from the scientific community. This means that the universities are among the largest patent applicants in Bremen State,” explain Lieselotte Riegger and Jens Hoheisel, the two InnoWi managing directors.

For three years, InnoWi has also increasingly been advising small companies and people starting up in business on questions of IP rights. The first measures were funded by the European ERDF funding program. Upon conversion into a patent and trade mark center, Bremen State takes over further funding in the corporate sector.

Lieselotte Riegger and Jens Hoheisel and their team are now looking forward to the new challenge: "In the coming years, we will be making every effort to provide the best possible support to all those who have good ideas and want to implement them. To this end, we offer individual consultations as well as events and in-house training."

In the future, the information center will be open from Monday to Thursday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. and on Friday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Those seeking advice will receive guidance on all IP questions. The InnoWi team also offers assistance on IP research, for which a separate search room is available. However, currently only online assistance is available. Contact InnoWi at mail@innowi.de or 0421/960070.