Land of Ideas

In terms of ideas, Germany is EU leader with the highest number of inventions registered with the European Patents Office, writes Derek Scallyin Berlin

Germany didn't win the 2006 World Cup but it did relaunch itself as the "Land of Ideas".

Just how many ideas, from the useful to the downright peculiar, originate here becomes clear after a trip to the patent office in Berlin.

How about the mobile dog toilet?

What looks like a small patch of lawn on wheels is in fact a high-tech toilet with plumbing for urine and a shovel-like device to allow the more solid deposits to be removed and flushed down a side drain.

"There came a time when I just had no interest in cleaning the yard every evening," says inventor Manfred Neiss, whose wife runs a dog beauty parlour.

"Now most of the dogs that come here use the toilet - and what's more, they know that they are to use it."

Mr Neiss patented his invention this year, one of 61, 000 Germans to do so, a new record.

At the European Patents Office, meanwhile, German individuals and companies registered 23,789 inventions this year, making Germany the European leader, far ahead of the number two, France (8,034) and the Netherlands (7,800).

"The most innovative and active sectors are vehicle construction and engineering with 10,000 registrations," said Jürgen Schade, president of the German Patent and Brand Office.

"The inventors of green technologies are, I'm happy to say, very active, like in wind and hydro-electric power.

"We're also seeing a rise in exhaust technologies, allowing the electronic steering of vehicles and exhaust fume treatment."

It's an appropriate development: after all it was a German, Carl Fredrich Benz, who invented the internal combustion engine and patented it in 1848.

Despite the rush of good ideas, however, a new study suggests that Germans are slow to make something of them, making the patent an unprofitable end in itself.

For instance the first hybrid engine on record - combining petrol and electricity drive, was developed in 1973 in West Germany.

Today, Japan's Toyota is the world leader with its Prius while German car makers play catch-up.

"Americans and Asians are always better in the implementation of market-ready products," says Karsten Müller, head of the Consultants for Patent Evaluation.

"We need to get better at understanding ideas as not just something to be protected but something to be seen as a tradeable product."

A study of 2,600 companies by the Institute of German Economy suggests that every fourth German patent never makes it to the market.

Either that or it arrives on the market from an Asian competitor while the original German prototype gathers dust.

These unrealised ideas, according to the study, cost the German economy €8 billion annually.

But there is a growing realisation in Germany and worldwide that the real worth of a company is not in its tangible assets but in its ideas.

The market for patent licences, worth €10 billion worldwide in 1990, will be worth €500 billion in 2010, according to Deutsche Bank.

With that in mind, companies are emerging in Germany to help with the patent process, see a product through to the market and police patent infringements.

That's a big help for small- and medium-sized companies, the ones most likely to sit on inventions and the least likely to fight patent infringements by bigger corporations.

Product piracy from Asian companies cost Georg Papst his family engineering business in 1992.

Still smarting from the experience, the Black Forest businessman set up his own agency a year later to try to prevent the same thing happening to others.

"Our company is one of a kind in Germany," says Papst. "Bigger competitors continue the practice in the expectation that the patent holder will run out of energy or money, but we are well fitted-out for a long fight."