Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

particularly on a focus on output as well as impact, 
excellence and openness.
• In a further step, all ministerial departments, the 
social partners and numerous stakeholders were 
brought into the process via the drafting group 
and the five WGs mentioned above. The WGs held 
several stakeholder workshops.
• An online survey on the individual topics covered 
by the WGs and the topic of basic research was 

---

1. Current Trends
69
conducted between 1 August and 31 October 
2019.
• A special 
Bundesländerdialog
, an exchange of 
ideas and information between the federal and re-
gional governments, was held on 15 October 2019 
and focused on “smart specialisation”. Workshops 
and dialogue with the federal states provided fur-
ther input for formulating the federal govern-
ment’s RTI strategy.
• The written submissions from the WGs were hand-
ed to the drafting group in late January 2020, 
with a draft version set to receive interministerial 
sign-off and be presented to the RTI Task Force by 
the summer of 2020.
The government programme also envisages holding 
an annual research summit in the future.
Implementation of the IP strategy
Back in February 2017, the federal government fully 
implemented or reviewed the implementation of the 
measures proposed in the IP strategy after two years 
of being in force. In the third year, the focus was on 
further expanding a number of offerings that had 
been well received, particularly in the areas of edu-
cation and awareness. 
(Continuing) education and information provided 
by the Austrian Patent Office
Two years after it was set up in spring 2018, the IP 
Academy, part of the Austrian Patent Office, has al-
ready held some 160 events nationwide focusing on 
patents, trademarks and design protection, reaching 
over 4,000 people in the process. Faced with the 
challenge of increasing the general understanding of 
the overall IP system in Austria to pave the way for 
more targeted, higher-quality IP rights applications 
in the medium to long term and enable companies to 
pursue focused IP strategies, the IP Academy is re-
sponding quite deliberately with an extensive range 
of seminars and workshops all about IP.
Its main target groups are students, start-ups and 
spin-offs but also established firms as well as re-
search and educational institutions. The speakers are 
proven experts in industrial property rights, mainly 
technical and legal examiners from the Patent Office. 
As well as teaching the basics (“Introduction to the 
world of patent, trademark and design protection”), 
the programme of events for 2020 also delves deep-
er (“Patents Patents!”, “Reading and understanding 
patents”, “A guide to trademark protection”) and ad-
dresses current issues (“Software-related patents”). 
Tips on searching free patent, trademark and design 
databases help inventors and creative types alike 
get their intellectual output off to a successful start.
The IP Academy is also expected to start upload-
ing interactive videos on IP protection to its website 
in June 2020. The explanatory videos are designed 
to help students in particular gain an insight into the 
world of IP as early as possible in their degree. 
The IP Hub online platform, also devised by the 
Austrian Patent Office, is the first port of call for any-
one looking for specific advice or support on the top-
ic of IP protection in their local area. The platform is 
enjoying steady growth and now features 23 part-
ners offering a total of 86 services.