Benchmarking National - PRO INNO Europe

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160 BENCHMARKING NATIONAL AND REGIONAL SUPPORT SERVICES FOR SMES IN THE FIELD OF INTELLECTUAL AND INDUSTRIAL <strong>PRO</strong>PERTY was set up by the <strong>National</strong> Industrial Property Institute (Institut national de la propriété industrielle (INPI)) together with the Ministry of Industry and a private consultant company specialized in IPRs (Cabinet Algoe). The scheme operated on an experimental/pilot basis for approx. 6 months in order to promote the service and make sure it would be implemented the same way in every region. At the same time, a guidebook on how to manage such a service was elaborated and published. Today, the service is provided by INPI (50 % of all pre-diagnoses are done by INPI) in collaboration with external experts. INPI can be considered as the central institution concerning IPR in France; it offers a wide range of IPR services for companies (consulting, patent database search services, etc), operates as the official registration office for IPR for companies and has an important lobbying function regarding IPR policy. INPI works in close collaboration with the following institutions, as regards also the operation of the IP Prédiagnosis service: � Oséo innovation (French national innovation agency formerly called ANVAR), � DRIRE (industry, research and environment regional direction), � Chambers of commerce and ARIST (regional strategic and technology information agencies), � CRITT (innovation and technology transfer regional centres). These co-operations reveal one important success factor for this service: All the institutions are part of the so-called RDT technology development network (Réseaux de dévelopment technologique) which aims to promote intellectual property in France. Each regional INPI branch (offices/centres; 11 in France) is in direct contact with its regional technology development network (RDT) office. The network is used mostly to inform local enterprises about IP Prédiagnosis and other related IPR services. The promotion of the service through this network is, according to interviewed experts, a very efficient approach to reach a selected target group. IP Prédiagnosis is provided by around 130 experts; 50 % working at INPI, 50 % are external experts. Regarding professional qualifications, the staff at INPI include IP experts with diverse backgrounds (e.g., engineers, lawyers or consultants) and training in relevant IPR issues. These experts are usually spread over the various departments at INPI and contribute to service quality by supplying different experiences, knowledge and viewpoints. Each pre-diagnosis session costs around € 1,500; the sum is fully covered by INPI. Nonetheless, supported SMEs are being made aware of the monetary value of the pre-diagnosis consultancy work and the fact that the costs are fully subsidised. A total budget of around € 400,000 p.a. is allocated to the service in order to allow for at least 250 IP assessments each year. Besides promotion on the internet, the service provider makes especially heavy use of personal/ pro-active contacting and the usage of multipliers/existing networks (i.e. the RDT network) to reach out for the customer group (and also for its marketing and public relations activities). As a matter of fact, pro-active contacting can be considered the primary “distribution” channel. Modes of operation Although IP Prédiagnosis is offered by INPI, pre-diagnosis activities are not carried out by INPI staff alone; around 50 % of the pre-diagnoses are executed by external experts working under a contractual agreement with INPI. A pre-diagnosis is carried out in the following way: An IPR expert, either from INPI or proposed by INPI, undertakes a first assessment of the company’s IP based on different analytical methods. A standardised guidebook has been specifically designed and tested for this purpose. Moreover, the expert analyses the state of the art of the IP management and/or strategy in the enterprise, evaluates the significance of IPR in the present situation and formulates issues that can probably influence the future ambitions of the company. Needs, priorities and expectations
are identified and put into a report outlining the different options for the enterprise to protect and use its IP. If necessary, interested companies are referred after the IP assessment to complementary services; these could be offered within INPI or through partner organisations. An important example would be the “first patent”–Technology network service (1er brevet) provided by Oséo innovation (see also case study nr. 15). It should be underlined that the IP prédiagnosis only aims to raise the awareness and to draw the attention to certain IPR issues – it is up to the firms to decide whether they implement the recommendations or not. Evaluation and Performance Regular monitoring exercises have been put in place in order to guarantee the quality of the programme. Further to that, an evaluation, conducted by a business school (EM Lyon) on the beneficiaries of the service in 2005, was carried out in order to assess the acceptance and practical value of the service. The results provided, among others, the following picture: � Small SMEs (less than 20 employees) represent 74 % of all beneficiaries (65 % in 2004). � 87 % were very satisfied with the pre-diagnosis (had a good or excellent general IP assessment). � 78 % stated that they understand better the stakes of intellectual property. � 51 % have implemented intellectual property actions (mostly filed for trade marks, patents, etc.) after the pre diagnosis. � 37 % did not implement actions related to the protection/usage of IP at the time of the survey, but intended to do so soon afterwards. About 100 enterprises are interviewed each year to get first-hand information about customer satisfaction. Further evaluations and analyses which focus on customer perceptions on how to improve the service are in the making. Regarding the external experts carrying out the analysis together with INPI, quality is guaranteed by a rigid selection and qualification procedure. Around 500 intellectual property pré-diagnoses should be carried out each year in France, including 100 especially in Ile-de-France (Paris region). The target was already reached with 470 IP pre-diagnosis in 2006. Since the service started, around 1,200 IP analyses have been executed by the end of 2006. 5.2 The user’s view In order to get an idea on how the service is perceived by its users and customers, a user survey was carried out in the scope of the underlying benchmarking study, the results of which are presented below. Characteristics of the user group 30 companies were surveyed about their experiences with IP Prédiagnosis. As can be seen from Graph 63, the user sample reflects that the service targets mostly micro-enterprises: 82 % of the SMEs in the sample have at most 9 employees, 11 % have 10 to 49 employees and only 7 % are larger companies (with a maximum of 249 employees). Between 2003 and 2005, 70 % of the service users introduced product innovations (new or significantly improved products) onto the market; and more than 37 % came up with process innovations. Around 83 % of the service users conducted intramural R&D (see Graph 64). Hence, IP Prédiagnosis users can be considered to be very innovative (which is more surprising than with other services, as SMEs- in non-IPR affine industries and non-IPR users are pro-actively contacted by the service staff). IP Prédiagnosis users most frequently take advantage of the service offerings of regional support agencies (see Graph 65). Although a lot of companies are suspected to be rather new to the IPR world, it is quite interesting to see that more 161 ANNEX I – CASE STUDIES
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PRO INNO Europe paper N° 4 BENCHMA
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PRO INNO Europe The innovation poli
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Contents Executive Summary 9 1 Intr
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4. Case Study: Innovation by patent
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Executive Summary Background 1. The
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under all circumstances), but rathe
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overall policy level, which primari
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the fact that the business perspect
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and evaluation). Hence, there is a
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20 BENCHMARKING NATIONAL AND REGION
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3 SMEs in the IPR world 3.1 SMEs an
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amount of time (mostly up to 20 yea
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In contrast to arrangements for pat
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3.3 Usage Patterns of IP protection
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industries of the ICT sector. These
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In a study conducted by Kingston (K
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Care must be taken that statements
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The first step to ensure that IP ma
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The patent troll as an SME-affine e
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Table 10 Overview of public availab
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Nr. B* Country Title of the Service
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European Commission Benchmarking na
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ISBN 978-92-79-06926-0 NB-AX-07-004
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