On October 2, 2019, WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and eight intellectual property (IP) offices from around the world unveiled Guidelines to Using Evidence from Research to Support Policymaking. The Guidelines are the result of a joint initiative that emerged out of regular discussions that the chief economists from those organizations have held on how best to promote high-quality research. The launch of the Guidelines took place on the sidelines of the WIPO Assemblies.
The eight IP offices that joined WIPO in this initiative are IP Australia, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, the European Patent Office, the European Union Intellectual Property Office, the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property, the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Among other elements, the Guidelines present best practices on collecting and analyzing data, promoting the clarity and transparency of studies, validating research results, and properly drawing conclusions.
In publishing these Guidelines, the sponsoring offices hope to promote the quality of economic research work in the field of IP, enhance transparency about what conclusions can and cannot be drawn from studies, and encourage responsible use of studies – with an overarching objective to enhance evidence-based policymaking.
The Guidelines can be downloaded here