As reported by the Newspaper Society: Key findings of ‘Intellectual Property Rights intensive industries: contribution to economic performance and employment in Europe’ are that about 39 per cent of total economic activity in the EU, worth some €4.7 trillion annually, is generated by IPR-intensive industries.
Approximately 26 per cent of all employment in the EU, 56 million jobs, is provided directly by these industries, while a further nine per cent of jobs in the EU stems indirectly from IPR-intensive industries, the study found.
Last week, the Commons Culture Media and Sport Committee said that the success of creative industries in the UK could be put in jeopardy by the dilution of intellectual property rights, the failure to tackle online piracy and the continuing promotion of illegal content by search engines, with Google in particular singled out for criticism.
Chairman John Whittingdale MP said they were “unimpressed by Google's continued failure to stop directing consumers to illegal, copyright infringing material on the flimsy excuse that some of the sites may also host some legal content.”
The European Commission welcomed the publication of the new EU study which was carried out jointly by the European Patent Office and the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market.
