Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that have registered IPRs earn almost 32% higher revenues per employee compared to SMEs that do not, a new report shows.
The report, 'Market success for inventions—patent commercialisation scoreboard: European SMEs', published today by the European Patent Office, said that SMEs and individual entrepreneurs were behind one in every five patent applications filed at the EPO in 2018.
But, it said that just 9% of SMEs in Europe own registered IP rights, compared to 40% of large companies.
It said SMEs that have filed a European patent application are 25% more likely to experience turnover growth of 10% or more for three consecutive years.
Additionally, the report found that resource-constrained SMEs use external partnerships as a way of entering new markets or sharing the financial burden of innovation.
Furthermore, jointly exploiting inventions with external partners enables SMEs to leverage their partners' resources too. SMEs involved in partnerships identify "increasing revenue" (85%) and "market access" (73%) as the main motives for collaborative exploitation.
Source: Wipr
