Barriers to the use of patent information in UK small and medium-sized enterprises. Part I: Questionnaire survey

Abstract

A survey was carried out of a large number of UK-based small and medium-sized enterprises to assess their use of, and attitudes towards, patents and patent information. Use of patent information is closely linked to use of the patent system for protection purposes. There appears to be little correlation between attitudes towards patents and patent information and educational background or with the type of industry the company was active in. The use of intermediaries, such as patent agents, to carry out patent searches appears at times to create as many barriers as it over-comes. The general approach of Patent Offices, that failure to use patent information is dangerous and that the way to overcome this is to make patent information easier or cheaper to use, may be misguided. The situation appears to be more complex. Small and medium-sized enterprises should not be treated as a single homogeneous group and, arguably, such companies do use patent information in the most appropriate way.

SME’s Appropriability Regime for Sustainable Development-the Role of Absorptive Capacity and Inventive Capacity

“…Even though each type of mechanism results in several different effects, both appropriability strategies are effective means of protecting innovations. While some SMEs rely on FAR, such as patent, utility model, industrial design, trademark and copyright, others depend on IAR, such as secrecy, complexity of design, lead time strategy and human regulation [11,18,19]. The previous studies have investigated the effect of these types of appropriability regimes on innovation performance in SMEs and many researchers argue that SMEs tend to apply IAR rather than FAR in terms of efficiency [4,10,11,20,21].…”

“…Especially in SMEs, the availability of external sources of knowledge carries risk and uncertainty for SMEs due to their lack of complementary assets, such as abilities to commercialize products and enhancing financial returns of the innovative product. In other word, SMEs have a weak position for building a barrier when competitors invade their market and also have a lack of complementary assets, which are important for the commercialization stage, such as marketing capability, channel and market power [19].…”

“…In contrast, IAR causes critical problems with retaining the value created from exploring external knowledge [19]. Firms would not have an incentive to invest in the development of new knowledge if all of the benefits already have spillovers to their competitors.…”

Mineração de Patentes e Pequenas Empresas: Uma Revisão Sistemática da Literatura Sobre Oportunidades de Negócio Sob a Ótica da Inovação Aberta

“…Elas abrem a possibilidade de aperfeiçoar o seu modelo de negócios ao identificar produtos que não estejam protegidos em determinado país, sendo assim passíveis de comercialização (Hall, Oppenheim, & Sheen, 2000;Hall et al, 1999).…”

“…Alinhadas a essa perspectiva, vale destacar que as patentes e suas informações têm duplo papel: fornecem informações técnicas e também informações comerciais (Hall, Oppenheim, & Sheen, 1999). Nesse sentido, é possível que o objetivo de cooperação e desenvolvimento conjunto seja atingido pela mineração de patentes, o que pode ser feito com a utilização de ferramentas gratuitas de mineração de dados como, por exemplo, o Patent2Net (Ferraz, Quoniam, Reymond, & Maccari, 2016).…”