 I'm very pleased that in addition to SAMA we have with us this morning Castan Fink who is our Chief Economist and who will be able to answer in a much more erudite manner than I, all of your questions. We are launching today the World Intellectual Property Indicators for the issue of 2010 it concerns principally 2008. It's a very full publication with a vast amount of detail and just let me give you a couple of indications of what's in it. As I said it concerns in principle 2008 because that is the data collection process however there is a special section which deals in a preliminary and not definitive manner with 2009. What we notice in 2008 is that of course if you recall 2008 was the year in which the financial crisis broke if you like in the last quarter I think around about October of 2008. What we see is that the slowdown in IP applications commenced. There were around the globe in 2008 1.9 million patent applications, 3.3 million trademark applications and 660,000 industrial design applications. So compared to the preceding year that was rather static indeed a small decline in the number of trademark applications, trademarks being something of a leading indicator as to economic health. What we see in the following year in 2009 in so far as we as we have the preliminary indications is that there has been a slowdown in research and development and Carsten can talk a little bit more about that. The data also indicates that patent filings dropped in most offices around the world in 2009 with the notable exception of China where they grew by 8.5% in China and when you take it all together China saved the world from dropping in the total its total number of patent applications. Indeed that number the total number of patent applications in 2009 rose by a small margin 2.9%. It was the smallest rise increase in global patent applications since the dot-com crisis in 2002. Trademark applications also dropped in 2008 by a small margin as I've said and what we see in 2009 is that they dropped considerably especially international trademark applications in the Madrid system they dropped by about 12% and as far as the preliminary indications for 2010 a concern we see for trademarks in the international applications because that's all we can measure for the moment that they have gone up by about 11% which takes them back to 2008 level. For patents international patent applications we are projecting an increase in 2010 of roughly 2.8% but that is still not at the level of 2008. It's still slightly below the level of 2008. So perhaps I will stop my comments there. Kastin would you like to make some comments maybe? Thank you Director General. Maybe just one or two additional observations on the report. As the Director General mentioned for the first time we introduced an analytical chapter in this report so not only to present the latest numbers the latest statistics that we collect but also to provide analysis putting some of the data into context and the topic that we chose for this year's World Intellectual Property Indicators is the impact of the economic crisis which is really still on the minds of policymakers. Maybe just a few observations as they come out of the analytical discussion. I think one thing became quite clear when we started to look at the most recent data is that in many ways what we have seen in 2008 and 2009 conforms to the expectations that we had going into this and especially the expectations that were formed based on previous episodes of economic downturn. So I think the message here is that certainly this crisis was different as far as the depth of the downturn was concerned but not necessarily as far as its qualitative impact was concerned. One of the things that we have learned from previous episodes of economic recessions was that trademark filings are more exposed to the business cycle than patent filings. Trademark filings indeed serve as a lead indicator of economic downturns but they also rebound more quickly and you know this is something that we have seen in this crisis as well. You know it intuitively relates to the fact that during the crisis fewer firms are being formed, fewer products are being launched and that immediately leaves the mark on trademark filings. As far as the impact on patents is concerned the impact on patents is initially more muted but it is longer lasting and you know that has to do with the multi-year nature of many of the R&D projects that companies are undertaking. Maybe two observations that I think you know are quite interesting about this crisis we were able to gather original data on research and development expenditure that largely comes from the reports that companies filed to publicly listed companies filed to the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States. These are not only US companies but these are multinational companies from around the world and what we saw there is similar to what we find in the case of patents that in 2008 there was a slowdown in R&D expenditure and at least you know based on the sample of publicly listed companies we find that in 2009 there was a drop in R&D expenditure. What is interesting though is that R&D expenditure fell by less than company revenues and that means that R&D intensity actually increased during the crisis and you know that is very much a reflection of the recognition of companies to keep on innovating so as to emerge even stronger once the crisis is passed. I think the second observation that I would make is that you know in line with the projections by the International Monetary Fund which predicts that there will be faster growth in emerging and developing countries after the crisis. We would also expect that to be reflected in IP data and in fact that is already something that we see both in national filings as well as in filings under the WIPO administered treaties, the Patent Corporation Treaty and the Madrid Treaty and I think you know there is a broader phenomenon behind it which you know is very much that we see a geographic shift in innovative activities with new players especially in Asia gaining in relative importance. You know this is a trend you know that certainly started before this crisis but you know this is something that we predict will continue and you know that you know I think very much has implications on you know the global competitive environment but I think it also has implications on you know the governance of the intellectual property system.