Benchmarking National - PRO INNO Europe

� Establishment of contractual relations with business partners for the industrial
development of an invention or industrial design (with the support of an
external consultancy).
The subsidy covers up to 70 % of the costs (60 % in case of big enterprises) with
a ceiling of € 36,000 (2006; 2005: € 30,000). Once the subsidies are granted, the
service providing organisation wires the sum directly to accounts of the beneficiaries.
Even if external consultants are involved in the process, the subsidy is finally
granted to the benefiting SMEs.
Evaluation and performance
Regarding existing quality assurance mechanisms, a monitoring system is
implemented which is based on a database of application forms. Monthly, weekly
and at times daily checks are being made to see whether there is enough budget
left and in order to analyse the types of applications received. As a consequence,
slight adaptations have been introduced to improve or extend the service. In the
latter context, the budget was for example extended from 2005 to 2006.
Furthermore, once the Spanish PO publishes the annual statistics on Industrial
Property in Spain, SEGAPI analyses the evolution of IPR registries in Galicia as well
as the possible impact of their subsidies on that evolution. In addition to this, an
evaluation is currently underway.
The take-up of the service in its first operational year can be considered to be rather
good. The following overview summarizes the 2005 results:
� Number of applications filed: 353; 351 were solely from SMEs (2 from
individuals);
� Number of applications granted: 154 out of 353. It should be noted that each
application for a subsidy might include different expenses to be covered;
therefore, a single application for funding might include two applications for
trademark or three design renewals, for instance;
� Total amount of subsidized IPR activities: 370, thereof…
· … 19 new patents were filed and granted with support from this service;
· … 288 other IP rights (trademarks, designs, etc.) were newly registered
with subsidy support from SGEAPI); 67 out of the 288 were international
registrations;
· … 63 other IPR activities were performed (mostly related to maintenance,
transfer, technological information or feasibility plans, etc.).
Registration activities emanating from Galicia (measured as the amount of
applications registered) increased by 21.34 % in 2005 compared to the previous
year, whereas the average growth rate for Spain amounted to +4.61 %. However,
no analysis is available to show how much SEGAPI played a role in this context.
In total, 3 advertisement campaigns were executed during 2005. 15 events were
partly co-organized (there were lectures held at IP conferences), attended by
approximately 20 people per event. Overall, about 2,500 SMEs were approached
in 2005 in one way or the other.
13.2 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
As part of the benchmarking study, 53 SMEs were subjected to a user survey which
checked for user satisfaction and the impact the service had on the utilising
companies. The distribution of the user sample shows that the service targets
mostly small enterprises (83 %) with less than 50 employees (see Graph 136).
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ANNEX I – CASE STUDIES