Benchmarking National - PRO INNO Europe

Background and Resources
In 2005, the budget of the PIC Stuttgart amounted to € 750,000; it is operated by
a staff of 8 persons (7.5 FTEs). Nationwide, the size of PICs (in terms of the staff
operating the centres) varies between 2 and 10 employees. In general terms the
qualification structure of the PICs all over Germany can bee seen as quite similar;
the staff employed at PIC Stuttgart consists for example of mechanical engineers,
public administration managers and librarians. As the offered service spectrum has
been extended and upgraded during the last years, experts believe that the
qualification of the staff needs to be constantly updated in the future, too, in order
to deal with newly-arising IPR issues.
In the past, target figures (i.e. quantitative number of users) have not been set for
the various PICs. According to experts, defining target figures is either impossible
or even counterproductive. As the main objectives of the PICs are to provide
enterprises with access to patent databases and to familiarise them with IPR related
issues as well as with the use of databases, a strong increase in the number of users
does not necessarily coincide with the maintenance (or even rise) of the quality
standard of the inventions. According to expert opinions, the public status of the
PICs in Germany can be seen as both a disadvantage and an advantage. The PIC
Stuttgart, for example, has to observe public administrative law and is therefore not
allowed to act profit-oriented on the market and/or to offer services that might
stand in competition with other private service providers. Therefore, potentially
profitable business ideas cannot be realised through PIC Stuttgart. On the other
hand, PIC Stuttgart’s public status and its implied neutrality can also be considered
as an asset. The high quality but not profit driven services are offered in a trustbuilding
environment aiming to support users which are often unsure about the
economic prospects of their innovations.
Regarding future activities, further efforts seem to be needed in order to increase
the awareness level of SMEs and inventors about the services of the PIC Stuttgart.
Although the PIC Stuttgart states to disseminate information on offered services
through a lot of available channels (i.e. Internet, pro-active contacting, using of
multipliers and existing networks and others), experts state that there is room for
improvement regarding marketing and advertising activities. In order to tackle this
issue, the expenditures for public relations and advertising of the PIC Stuttgart have
been increased in 2007. In co-operation with a professional advertising agency the
PIC Stuttgart intends to promote especially its seminars and trainings. Therefore,
the PIC Stuttgart expects to significantly increase the number of participants at
seminars and trainings in the future.
Modes of operation
The network of the Germany-wide PICs acts mainly as first contact points offering
various types of support; the main task is to provide access to original IPR
documents and to assist enterprises in researching IPR protected innovations.
Furthermore, all Patent Information Centres provide photocopies of patent
documents and carry out patent searches. More specifically, the PIC Stuttgart, for
example, offers the following services:
� Patent search services in databases: performed by the customer for a small fee
or – against a higher fee – by the staff of the PIC, on a continuous basis
(continuous opening hours etc.), in the premises of the PIC. Enterprises make
also increasing use of the freely accessible databases concerning IPRs on the
Internet offered by PIC Stuttgart.
� Initial free legal advice by external patent attorneys for SMEs and private
inventors (weekly at PIC Stuttgart); non-legal advice on IPR matters from the
PIC staff.
� Organisation of trainings and seminars (max. number of participants 22, fee:
210 Euro per participant). According to experts, the importance of training
courses and seminars regarding IPRs has increased during the last years. This
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ANNEX I – CASE STUDIES