Industry 4.0 without trade secret?

All the words of the networked production. If machines communicate globally, but also then solves the concerns. What will become of product data and trade secrets, from patents and trademarks?

The number sounds awesome: 3400 Sextillionen workpieces, tools and machines on the new Internet standard IPv6 can be networked together. 3400 Sextillionen, the attached is a 34 with 38 zeros. It is not yet quite as far as, but it and mechanical engineering merge has been around for years. In connection to the Internet is from the product-oriented economy and a Datenokonomie.

"We must equip our products so that we are in a central building control system in a machine drives and cooling and whatever available on demand," explains Bruno Lindl, the ebm-papst group is responsible for research and development. His company manufactures fans and drives. "There must be an interface, namely bidirectional, that is, it is not just a matter to receive the command, but also causing them, What status is reached, or whether there is a special feature."

A fence does not protect more

Even a company is a protected area. A building complex with spatial boundaries, with fences and security. There is a patent and trademark law, the protection of intellectual property.

But in the digital economy, there is no inside and no outside. The security architecture of the analogue time here can not keep up. "Today's patent protection does not apply to this operating data. And I believe that he will also do not apply to them in future," says Ziesemer.

But it's not only about operational data. Also, the data are generated by users, and the interplay between the two are becoming ever more important. "How are actually protected machine data, for example when driving and important information about the condition of the vehicle and the driver and his whereabouts? ", asks Ulrich Grillo, President of the Federation of German industry. "To whom this information to and is it operational or business secrets? We need here even for a new intellectual property right?"