Benchmarking National - PRO INNO Europe

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BENCHMARKING NATIONAL AND REGIONAL SUPPORT SERVICES FOR SMES IN THE FIELD OF INTELLECTUAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY
participant through around 40 assessment factors to identify the value of different
business products and to deliver the basis for professional IP-management. IPscore
will be delivered as a software package (CD-Rom) with a user’s manual; the costs
for the service pack amount to € 2,400.
It has to be mentioned, though, that the DKPTO holds the rights for IPscore® in
Denmark but decided to assign international rights to the European Patent Office.
As experts state, the DKPTO felt this step was important, since the tools value
increases with the amount of companies that use it.
Trainings courses and seminars
The DKPTO also provides a large number of targeted IPR courses. The various
departments of the DKPTO send their experienced personnel to hold seminars to
the public in a wide range of IPR related areas, also in IP management. However,
the average course is a one-day event, typically about patents (what products can
be patented and how, general introduction, assistance with patentability evaluations,
application formulations etc).
More than 40 courses and seminars are offered every year. As the user group is very
heterogeneous, the DKPTO arranges customised courses and seminars. Apart from
companies that seek knowledge about IPR in relation to their products, there are
also courses targeting IPR agencies and patent agents. Around 95 % of the courses
are held at the DKTPO’s premises in Taastrup, Copenhagen. At the end, the courses
are evaluated by an evaluation tool (called ‘customer logic’ from Analyse Denmark).
Service experts report that the overall feedback from participants is generally very
good.
Evaluation and Performance
A number of instruments and quality assurance mechanisms are in place to further
increase efficiency and service quality. Customer satisfaction, response time and
delivery time are benchmarked and analysed to improve performance. In this
context, the service provider underlines especially the high level of customer
satisfaction evidenced in annual surveys. The focus of the performance measures
seems to be on the core operating field of IPR filing and processing – information
regarding the assessment and performance measurement of the other services
available was, except for fact that IPR courses are evaluated using the “customer
logic” tool, not available.
In 2004, the DKPTO processed around 2,000 Danish patent applications, 5,100
applications were filed in the field of trade marks. By contrast, Danish design
applications have seen a steady decline during the last years (2002: 2,100
applications; 2004: 700 applications). As the 2004 Annual Report of the DKPTO
outlines, this development is basically due to the fact that companies chose to use
new possibilities of applying for a design protection offered at European level
instead of filing with the DKPTO only.
As the DKPTO operates under the auspices of the Danish Ministry of Economics and
Business Affairs, the DKPTO is required to carry out performance measurements
which entail assessments of such targets as processing time for patent applications
and trade marks registrations. In 2006, the processing time for patent applications
was considered to be “satisfactory” by the users, as around 96 % of the applications
were processed within the defined time limit. On the other hand, users rated the
processing time for trade mark registration in 2006 as “not satisfactory” as almost
30 % of the applications were not processed within the time limit. Based on official
information from the DKPTO, the latter result was due to internal reorganisation
processes.
DKPTO’s website is considered to be a main entry point for customers with monthly
hit rates ranging to 120,000 hits. In addition, it is estimated that the DKPTO
handles about 150 telephone inquiries daily.