Hello and welcome everyone to this online conversation hosted by the European Centre for International Political Economy, on the economic and broader societal value of intellectual property or IP for the EU and its member states.

My name is Jackie Davis and today I'm very pleased to welcome Philippe Heertz to this conversation.

Philippe is Director-General of Sesimo, the European Association of the Machine Tool Industries

and Related Manufacturing Technologies. An IP-intensive sector, which was among those exact Association of the Machine Tool Industries and related manufacturing technologies, an IP intensive

sector, which was among those examined in the recent E-Syp study on the benefits of intellectual

property rights in EU free trade agreements.

Very warm welcome, Philippe, and great to have you with us.

Can I just dive straight in? How important

is this issue that we're talking about? How crucial are intellectual property rights for the

sectors that your organisation represents? Thank you very much, Jackie. So as you may note,

SysimO is an umbrella organization for the European machine tool industries and related manufacturing

technologies, such as additive manufacturing, for example.

So along with other industries, indeed, our sector is part of a group that makes intensive

use of intellectual property rights such as patents, trademarks, industrial designs and copyright.

Competitiveness and technology superiority are the main characteristics that distinguish

our machine tool builders on a global level.

And therefore, intellectual property rights and protecting our producers are our top priorities.

So when we talk about innovations, it's important to stress that each innovation is like an investment project.

For our producers, it's important that IPR provisions create the potential to achieve a better balance between risk and returns of investments.

So IPR in this way helps the economic development of a country by promoting

health competition and encouraging industrial development and economic growth.

And you talk there about different types. You talked about patents, trademarks, you mentioned

...