…and thus made an immediate impact on the duration of procedures.

That is right. If we can manage to permanently clear the backlog in procedures, we will be able to gradually reduce the time it takes to complete a procedure. However, examination quality always has top priority at the DPMA. This is what our applicants can rely on. And that is equally valid, by the way, for the other IP rights. In the fields of trade marks and designs, we are of course also working on making our procedures even more attractive. For all those tasks, which serve our economy, we continue to need political support, above all, so that we will also have sufficient staff available in the future.

Having enough permanent posts is one aspect. Being able to fill them in times of lack of skilled staff is an entirely different story. How confident are you in that regard?

That is another and absolutely crucial challenge. We are constantly looking not only for engineers and natural scientists, but also for a lot of skilled IT staff. The DPMA is a highly digitised public authority, and our IT systems are the key element of our working capacity. When trying to recruit experts for our tasks, we are competing with international technology companies at our locations in Munich and Jena. The positioning as an attractive employer will therefore become an almost existential task in the next years. But I am very optimistic. The DPMA has recently been doing quite well in filling positions in these fields with outstanding staff.

We offer our colleagues a maximum of flexibility.

What makes the DPMA an attractive employer?

I do not think that I exaggerate when I say: We offer our colleagues a maximum of flexibility for the completion of their tasks. Our experience gained from the COVID-19 pandemic, during which many of our investments in digitisation already paid off, has confirmed that as a target. This year, we adopted a new work agreement (Dienstvereinbarung) on workplace flexibility (see here). Our colleagues are supposed to be able to choose their working model in terms of place and time as individually as possible.

At the same time, of course, we strive to maintain the face-to-face exchange of our staff. We want our staff to be able to reconcile their personal life and their professional tasks as well as possible. A target close to my heart is for us to recruit more qualified women. The DPMA as a technical authority might sometimes be more in the focus of men. But several awards proof that we are a very attractive employer, especially for women. We will continue to stand out with these benefits.

Does your personal experience as a woman and as a mother play a role in all of this?

It does play a role, for sure. I am quite familiar with the challenges we can be faced with at the personal or family level when we take on professional responsibility, maybe even a leadership role. We want highly qualified women to work for us, also in leadership positions. I am glad that work-life-balance is already an inherent part of our organisational culture. And we are going to foster and expand this culture.

You are the second woman leading the DPMA, an office with 146 years of history. Does that mean anything to you?

First and foremost, I am glad and proud on a personal level that the Federal Minster of Justice trusted me with such an important task. From the point of view of society as a whole, I take this as normalisation, which is why I am also pleased in this regard. My much-valued predecessor Cornelia Rudloff-Schäffer was in office for a long time, during which she made quite an impact, and that is now no longer a historic exception. It is clearer than ever that, of course, women can lead a national authority active in the fields of technology and natural sciences.

Commercial IP rights play a crucial role for growth and prosperity in our society and are therefore also of outstanding importance from a strategic point of view.

What intrigues you about the new position?

The variety of tasks, and the cooperation with many different people working in the big organisation that the DPMA is. The international relations and the impact of our office on the international discussions around intellectual property are an exciting challenge to me as well. And of course, there is the importance of our statutory mandate as a whole:
Commercial IP rights play a crucial role for growth and prosperity in our society. Studies show that industrial sectors with high numbers of applications for IP rights create much more value and jobs and offer higher salaries compared to other sectors. That says a lot about the importance of our tasks.

How important is the new statutory mandate to provide information according to section 26a of the Patent Act (see here) in this regard?

That is an extremely important task that we are excited to take on. Big companies know how essential commercial IP rights are and how to navigate them. But the new mandate to provide information gives us the possibility to raise awareness among the general public and in particular among small and medium-sized enterprises. However, the topic of awareness of how to protect innovation using IP rights is not limited to the industry. It should also be considered in the federal governments’ innovation strategies from the very beginning. After all, we can see how much strategic importance China, for example, attaches to patents. In Germany, too, we should take a clear stance in this regard.