Benchmarking National - PRO INNO Europe

Like with other services analysed in the scope of the underlying study, service users
seem to be highly innovative: Around 53 % of the service users introduced new or
significantly improved products onto the market between 2003 and 2005, 45 %
were able to introduce process innovations in the same time frame. However, only
a few service users conducted intramural R&D, compared to other users of IPR
support measures. It seems that classical R&D plays a less important role within the
surveyed companies which is also emphasised by a relative low percentage of staff
engaged in R&D (17 % on average). This may be seen as a first indication that
SEGAPI users may stem from Low- and Medium Tech (LMT) industries, and one
could ascertain that they would thus focus more on incremental innovation than
radical ones; following this reasoning one might suspect that patents play less of a
role in the SEGAPI context – a hypothesis which is substantiated further (see
below).
SEGAPI patent promotion users utilise most frequently the services offered by
regional agencies. As one may guess, the used regional support was most likely
SEGAPI itself (see Graph 137). On the other hand and very surprising, no client
made use of any support from patent attorneys or external consultants. This seems,
at first sight, surprising as external consultants are often largely involved in the
programme (e.g., to execute patent searches) and should be thus visible to the
enterprises. However, the statements received by the respondents imply that many
of the surveyed enterprises view SEGAPI as the service providing institution.
As regards factors hampering innovation activities, the users complained mostly
about high innovation costs (for 68 % of high and for further 19 % of medium
relevance), economic risks (for 40 % of high and 30 % of medium relevance) and
financial sources associated with innovation projects (for 34 % of high and 13 % of
medium relevance) (see Graph 138). By contrast, the lack of qualified personnel,
regulations and standards, client responsiveness or organisational issues are
considered less important. These findings are also in line with those from other
services analysed in the scope of the underlying benchmarking study.
Regarding the methods of IPR-protection, most users (92 %) registered trade marks
between 2003 and 2005 followed by filings for patents (32 %); around 26 %
already had a patent granted or valid in that time period (see Graph 139).
Interestingly, informal protection methods are not so much on the agenda of
SEGAPI users – at least not consciously. The high share of trade marks indicates, in
line with the rather low R&D activities, that the companies may be indeed less
technology oriented. According to the service provider, most of the surveyed
Graph 139 SEGAPI Promotion of Industrial Property–IP protection methods
employed by service users, 2003 to 2005, percentage of
respondents*)
%
100
80
60
40
20
0
32
Patents filed
26
Patents valid
and/or granted
17
Design patterns
and/or utility
models
92
Trademarks
*) multiple answers allowed. Source: User Survey, n = 53
8 2
8
Copyrights
Defensive
Publishing
Trade
secrets/secrecy
agreements
Design
complexity
Lead-time
advantage
No deliberate
IPR strategy
241
ANNEX I – CASE STUDIES