Europe has to improve upon capitalising on its inventions, said Máire Geoghegan Quinn, the European Union’s Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science.
Take the MP3 player, for example. The technology behind the device was invented in Europe, Geoghegan Quinn said, but it was commercialised in the US. This, she added, has to change and Ireland should be at the forefront of bringing bright ideas to the market.
Europe, which is not good at capitalising on its inventions, needs to build a ‘Single Market for Innovation’, Geoghegan Quinn said. The continent is nearly at ‘level pegging’ with the US regarding the number of patents registered, she said, however, the cost of patents in the EU is higher than in America.
The job is to change this to create a large and harmonised single market for services and a European venture capital market.
Geoghegan Quinn also said she wanted more of the EU’s third-level institutions to collaborate with industry.
Photo: Máire Geoghegan Quinn, the EU’s Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science
