Benchmarking National - PRO INNO Europe

potential for an invention (e.g., end user opinions). A formal evaluation of the
foundation was commissioned in 2006; results should be available by the end of
2007.
With respect to evaluations it is also worthy to note that an international evaluation
group evaluated Finnish invention activities as a whole in 1998. The study also
covered the Foundation’s performance and stated that the Foundation is an
important player in the Finnish innovation policy landscape. It especially highlighted
the fact that the Foundation provides some unique services, and made further
positive remarks with regard to its significant role for private inventors and small
companies and its good networking performance. Last but not least, a user survey
was also conducted for the Foundation’s own published newspaper in 2005. One
important outcome was the desire to read more about success stories.
The following performance figures were provided by the Foundation for Finnish
Inventions for the benchmarking study:
� The Foundation handled approximately 20,000 information requests by
prospective inventors (SMEs and private individuals) in 2005.
� 802 funding applications were received in the year 2005 and 215 of those
received a positive response, i.e. they got funded. This means that only about
27 % actually pass all criteria for funding – an indicator for a selective
procedure and a rather high quality of the supported projects.
� 41 projects were commercialised in 2005. Most of these projects applied for
financial assistance concerning patents. Assuming that the number of funded
projects remains constant over some period of time, this would indicate that
for about 19 % of the supported projects patenting becomes an issue.
� Estimates show that about half of the applications, subsidised projects and
subsidised patent applicants stem form private individuals/inventors, and the
other half from SMEs.
� The average amount of subsidy was € 10,000.
� Most inventions were related to the field of physics (17 %).
� Since 1971, about 2,200 patents have been granted with support from this
service.
� In terms of pro-active contacting, 171 organisations (mostly SMEs) were
contacted and 32 inventions were offered to them. 104 visits were made for
this purpose on site.
Performance indicators measuring the level of diffusion of information to the target
group reported are:
� Media Clippings: The foundation has been mentioned 154 times in the media
(newspapers, magazines and radio/TV)
� Hit rates: The website of the foundation had a hit rate of 127,000 in 2005.
� Circulation volumes: A foundation newspaper is published one time a year,
with a yearly circulation volume of 35,000 (which is rather high)
Though IP protection methods other than patents and IP-related commercialisation
activities (especially licensing activities) can be considered important in the service
context, figures to this end have not been made available. The Foundation stresses
that the important part of the service is not a focus on patents, but to be able to
help inventors and small SMEs in the best possible way. This rather broad approach
on the usage of different IP instruments can be certainly considered an element of
good practice.
12.2 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.
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ANNEX I – CASE STUDIES