Benchmarking National - PRO INNO Europe

11. IPR Services of the
Technology Watch
Center CVT
Country: Luxembourg
Centre de Veille Technologique (CVT) – Centre de
Original title:
Recherche Public Henri Tudor
Target group: All companies
Coverage: National
(Pro-active) awareness raising measures/Public Relations
Information Provision Services
Category*: Training
Customized in-depth consulting and advisory services/
X
points
Finance & Legal Framework
*classification system defined by the Austrian Institute for SME Research
11.1 The Technology Watch Centre CVT
in a nutshell
Background and Resources
The case study on the Technology Watch Centre (Centre de Veille Technologique;
CVT) of the Research Centre for Public Research (Centre de Recherche Publique;
CRP) Henri Tudor has been selected in the scope of the underlying benchmarking
study to illustrate what can work in very small countries in terms of IPR support for
SMEs. CVT has a number of so-called “projects” which adress the issue of IPR usage
by SMEs, including the creation of a dedicated publication (LIIP – Linking Innovation
and Industrial Property), the establishment of an e-learning course or the provision
of counselling services on IPR matters. The CVT IPR services are embedded in a
portfolio of other services which govern the subjects of “standards and regulations”
and “technology roadmapping/forecasting”. It is aimed to create synergy effects
between these three fields which can be considered to be closely related to each
other. International cooperation is the key issue for service providers such as the
CVT in very small countries – both for the design and creation of support measures
as well as for the reach-out to an adequate number of SMEs.
As one of the departments of CRP Henri Tudor, the objectives of the Technology
Watch Center (CVT) are to increase the awareness of companies to the growing
importance of intellectual property information and to assist them in setting up
their information management processes. The CVT assists companies in searching,
gathering, treating, analysing and managing scientific, technical and technicallyorientied
business information.
The initial goal of the CVT was to support the activities of the intellectual property
department of the Ministry of Economics and Foreign Trade by assuring the
diffusion of patent information. Then, new competencies in management of
technology watch and competitive / business / technical intelligence processes
were created and its mission grew up to:
� the assistance in setting up of technology watch and competitive intelligence
practices in companies;
� the development and marketing of technology watch and competitive
intelligence services;
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ANNEX I – CASE STUDIES