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
4.2 Policy options with regard to SMEs
To better understand the overall policy environment it is thus important to go
beyond the field of IPR related policy and include also the area of innovation
support, higher education and research policy. Interestingly, a number of parallels
between these policy fields can be revealed which creates opportunities for
synergies. Table 3 lists the policy options available to policy makers in the field of
IPR to boost IPR usage performance by SMEs. However, a closer look reveals that
most of these policy options are generic in nature and cover a wider range of issues
to support innovations created by small firms.
It should be noted, though, that synergy fields are also likely to be potential fields
of conflict – from an institutional point of view, for example, attempts by two
different organisations to integrate their respective overlapping service portfolios
into one single portfolio might entail competition between those parts of the
organisations which have similar service offerings. As a matter of fact, the
competition or conflict mode may be rather the exception than the rule. Mostly,
the relations between the institutions providing the respective services (IPR-related
vs. innovation-related) have demonstrated mutual isolation, but, increasingly,
collaboration is emerging between them, based on division of labour. In some
cases, the respective institutions have broadened their portfolios by integrating
additional services or service components. In the best case, this enlargement /
integration is used to increase the awareness of IPR issues on the side of the
innovation agency and vice versa, and serve as a basis for institutional
collaboration.
Table 3 summarises a range of evidence collected from numerous evaluations of
government programmes and measures. It has its focus on the organisational
aspect of institutions, particularly when addressing aspects such as “need / market
failure” and “justification” as the input into the policy process, “strengths”, and
“limitations” as those variables that determine the profile and performance of the
services eventually delivered.
Furthermore, from an institutional perceptive, the manifold aspects of providing
IPR support services to SMEs, as indicated in Table 3, give rise to the question of
collaboration as well as conflicts and blind spots. While conflicts mainly
reduce efficiency, the existence of blind spots leads to a more serious consequence,
namely of missed opportunities. Thus, in the search for principles of good
practice, (i) the architecture of institutional relationships and (ii) related issues of
good governance are the most critical issues to consider. Accordingly, the
dimensions listed below are to be analysed:
Context
This set of factors describes the overall institutional division of labour including the
mutual relationships between the involved institutions. The latter can take several
forms:
� Governmental institutions (mainly ministries), taking over the roles of
principals vis-à-vis RTDI agencies, patent offices etc. Under very general
conditions, these principals typically move into the notorious asymmetry
between the principal and the agent. While the former relies on its formal
power, the latter derives its power by the accumulated knowledge and
information as well as the built-up networks and relationships. Accordingly, the
balance between the principal and the agents is an omnipresent issue in terms
of the quality of governance and the origin of synergies, conflicts, and blind
spots.
� National patent offices. They exhibit by far the longest tradition. Large
parts of their self-perception are determined by their monopolistic position as
a sovereign authority. During the last decade many of the national patent
offices changed their position and role into a service-oriented organisation. As