Technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Polish Patent Law
Publication date: December 02, 2024
1. Introduction
German economist Klaus Schwab described the present as the era of the fourth industrial revolution during the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2016. This concept dates back to the research conducted by the working group led by Siegfried Dais , the report of which was presented to the government of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2013. It was in this report that the concept of “Industry 4.0” (German: Industrie 4.0) was first created.
Industry 4.0 is supposedly the effect of the fourth industrial revolution, the pillars of which are the automation and computerization of industry and the implementation of modern production methods. All this is to lead to the creation of cyber-physical production systems – and therefore systems that function both in the real world (through the work and devices of industrial machines) and the virtual world (through the control of production processes by IT systems, including AI and the coordination of devices and machines in the Internet of Things or in the computing cloud). Importantly, Industry 4.0 is not only an industry of modern technologies in the sense that it produces advanced products – it is an industry that uses modern technologies in the entire production process, regardless of whether it produces technologically advanced products such as smartphones or relatively simple to produce items such as hand tools.
