Patents in transition over the last 30 years

03.09.2025

The Bavarian Patent Center has been protecting the ideas of inventors, companies and research institutions for 147 years. Today, it is part of Bayern Innovativ GmbH, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. A good moment to pause and take a short journey through time: Bruno Götz, Head of Patents & CE at Bayern Innovativ, takes you on an exciting journey through three decades of innovation and patent protection on the occasion of Bayern Innovativ GmbH's 30th anniversary.

Join us and discover how the future is created from ideas.

Which upheaval has had the greatest impact on the patent landscape in the last 30 years?

Bruno Götz: Perhaps we need to go back a little further, because the first patent issuing office, our base, was not in Munich, but in Nuremberg. Before the war, you had to go to Nuremberg to look at patents. There are now two patent offices in Munich: the European Patent Office and the German Patent Office. The biggest change from our point of view was in the 1990s to 2000s, when the Internet came along. All the documents we had at the Bavarian Patent Center were replaced by online services. The largest database of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office now has 150 million patent documents, and our display site, i.e. the base of the Bavarian Patent Center, had an area of approximately 1,800 square meters. Over the last 30 years, I've disposed of around 50 tons of paper, because it's all online now. From our point of view, that was of course the biggest change.

Patents have always been seen mainly as a legal safeguard. Has the view of patents changed, perhaps even becoming a driver of innovation?

Bruno Götz: Patent databases are the largest collection of technical data there is. This means that if you want to innovate, you can use this treasure and research it. They are freely available. However, patent searches are not trivial either. Anyone driving innovation today should also take care of patent information.

What is the IP sector?

Bruno Götz: IP is the abbreviation for "intellectual property". This translates as industrial property protection, which includes three areas: technical property rights, i.e. patents and utility models that can be used to protect technical innovations. Then there are trademarks, which can be used to assign a product or service to a company. The third is design protection, i.e. the external form of something.

What role do digitalization and artificial intelligence play in this area?

Bruno Götz: Digitalization has changed the design world decisively. You can use digital databases better than before and conduct more structured research. AI is the actual tool that enables us to cope with the flood of data from 150 million documents. We have also noticed that an extremely high number of patents are being registered in the field of AI. This means that a great deal is being developed in every industry, from digitalization to the construction sector. In the future, patents will no longer be as factual and tangible as they used to be, but will also include digital business models or simulations that can be better processed with AI.

How is traditional protection thinking changing in the context of open innovation strategies such as open innovation?

Bruno Götz: Open innovation is perhaps already a bit over. More applications are still being filed in the patent area in particular. The European Patent Office also reported a two percent increase in applications last year. Open innovation may make sense in certain areas, but for companies that want to protect their ideas and innovations, patents and utility models are still in demand.

What advice would you give to a small or medium-sized company that is thinking about applying for a patent for the first time?

Bruno Götz: First of all, you have to research whether what you have found is really new. Here we offer free initial inventor information and search support. A patent search is not comparable to an Internet search. It requires the appropriate know-how. We help you to take the first steps. In some areas, it really is like detective work. We also advise on cost and filing strategies, illuminating and examining the whole issue.

Patents are often considered expensive and complex. Which funding programs or platforms can make it easier for companies to get started?

Bruno Götz: There are currently two funding programs for patents. One is the WIPANO program from the German government and the other is from the EU and is called the SME Fund. You can get a grant of up to 90 percent for applications, searches or other services in connection with patent applications.

Are there examples where a clever patent strategy has helped companies in the long term?

Bruno Götz: I have two good examples. One even comes from near Nuremberg, the company Schwan-Stabilo. The patent applications of the last few years show that in the 2000s they increasingly applied for patents in the field of cosmetics, and today Schwan-Stabilo is the world market leader for cosmetic pencils. However, this does not mean that the company name is on these pencils, but that they produce the pencils for the large companies, which then sell them under their label. Another exciting patent strategy came from Mr. Krinner. He was the inventor of the Christmas tree stand with this rope pull technology. He wasn't satisfied with the old product and then went into his workshop and invented the rope pull technology Christmas tree stand. At the time, he was actually working in agriculture. He was clever and quickly had this invention patented, because when a product like this comes onto the market, it is copied very quickly and there is nothing you can do about it without patent protection. He has since founded a company based on this patented invention and is the European market leader for Christmas tree stands. So you can see how you can use patent protection to secure your corporate strategy and also drive forward the establishment of a company. They did everything right. They have secured companies, secured sales and thus also created jobs, which is the ideal approach when you have invented something so that you can then reap the rewards of your work.

How are global challenges such as climate change, the pandemic and economic crises affecting the patent landscape and are there any changes in priorities as a result?

Bruno Götz: During the pandemic, we saw a sharp rise in patent applications in medical technology. It was clear because everyone needed a mask, for example, and many new possibilities were invented. It's also important to have patent protection. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't have had a vaccine available during the pandemic, because the development of medical preparations and pharmaceutical products is extremely costly. Without a certain amount of monopoly protection for the innovator, nobody wants to invest in it. What you can also see is that there is an increasing focus on climate and environmental protection technology. People are thinking about how to solve problems and this is also leading to many applications for climate change.

How do you see the patent system in 2055?

Bruno Götz: We will certainly see a radical change. We can already see it now with trademarks. There used to be word and figurative marks, but now there are all kinds of different types of trademarks, multimedia trademarks and so on. AI is also bringing about a major change in the patent sector, as it is already capable of writing a patent or even making a patentable invention. It can also evaluate everything contained in the patent information. In other words, the training data is there and accessible for the AI to use. A lot will change in the future.

Can we now rely on AI for patent searches?

Bruno Götz: It's the same as in many other areas: AI provides support, but humans still have to look over it again. One area where AI will take even longer is analysis, i.e. deriving strategic business decisions from patent data. If you give AI a patent and ask it to search for similar patents, AI can already do this today, but it will take even longer to really be able to derive decisions for companies.

The interview was conducted by Barbara Groll, Media Relations, Bayern Innovativ GmbH, Nuremberg.