Benchmarking National - PRO INNO Europe

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BENCHMARKING NATIONAL AND REGIONAL SUPPORT SERVICES FOR SMES IN THE FIELD OF INTELLECTUAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY
As can be suspected, service users are very innovative: 4 out of 5 users of the INSTI SME
Patent Action introduced product innovations (new or significantly improved products)
onto the market between 2003 and 2005 onto the market. 48 % introduced process
innovations in the same time frame. As concerns R&D, 87 % of the SMEs conduct
intramural R&D, and, on average, about half of the staff works in R&D. These far-above
country average figures concerning the level of innovative activities can also be
observed with the users of the other services analysed in the scope of this study.
INSTI SME Patent Action users most frequently take advantage of the service
offerings of patent attorneys (see Graph 27). This may be to a point explained by
the fact that the patenting process is of utter importance for the companies in their
specific phase of development (bearing the high share of enterprise starters in
mind), but it is still interesting to note that development agencies (with national
agencies being almost on par with the patent office in terms of usage frequency)
and, even more so, private consultants play a much lesser role for the companies
as service providers in the field of innovation than one could have anticipated.
As regards factors hampering innovation activities, the companies mostly mentioned
high innovation costs (for 49 % of high and for further 40 % of medium relevance),
difficulties concerning access to finance (for 40 % of high and 32 % of medium
relevance) and economic risks associated with innovation projects (for a total of
76 % of relevance) (see Graph 28).
Graph 27 INSTI SME Patent Action–Usage of different service providers,
percentage of respondents *)
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
49
19
Patent
attorney
36
32
12 11
National
agency
Patent office
*) multiple answers allowed. Source: User Survey, n = 53
36
Regional
agency
22
31
5 4 3 3 3
Other
frequently occasionally
Graph 28 INSTI SME Patent Action–Hampering factors for innovations, 2003 to
2005, percentage of respondents *)
%
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
40
49
Innovation
costs
32 40
40
Finance
36
Economic risks
26
34
11 11
Lack of
qualified
personnel
*) multiple answers allowed. Source: User Survey, n = 53
Regulations &
standards
21
Lack of market
info
Chamber of
commerce
26
8 6
high relevance medium relevance
Client
responsiveness
26
External
consultants
17
EU
26
11
0 0
Organisational
issues
Lack of
technology info