خدمات جدید موسسه مالکیت معنوی فدرال سوئیس برای کمک به تصمیم گیری استراتژیک شرکت ها

A further phase of the radical reorganisation and enhancements of the services provided by the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property in the field of patent information is described. The objective in this phase is to help customers to incorporate intellectual property and patent information into their corporate strategic decision processes. This is facilitated by generating a series of search modules, a selection of which can be linked together optimally to meet a customer’s needs. Typical modules outlined include technology trend analysis, and portfolio assessment and competitor analysis, and embrace patentability and infringement patent searches. The objective is further facilitated by the formation of partnerships with organisations that have complementary skills.

The services provided by the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IGE) in the field of patent information have undergone radical changes in recent years. These changes have in part been in response to the changing needs of customers once cheap and easily accessible patent databases and patent copy supply became available on the Internet. The changes have also been in part fostered by the increasingly financially independent status of the Institute, and by the Institute’s decreasing role as a regulatory body in relation to granting patents. Some of these earlier changes have been the subject of articles in this journal by one of the co-authors––see Kurt [1], [2] and [3]. IGE is Switzerland’s national authority for matters pertaining to intellectual property law with one fairly major difference: it is financially independent of the federal budget, which means that it operates according to free-market principles. For this reason, it does not see itself as mainly an administrative agency but more as a competence centre for intellectual property with the function of stimulating local enterprises by encouraging innovation at all stages of the development process, including the exploitation of patents. The IGE patent division is particularly innovative and user-focused. In response to the problems posed by the dwindling number of national patent applications (there are now only about 2500 a year) and the staffing problems caused by the need for examiners to be not only specialised but fluent in one of three national languages, we set up a team including between two and three full-time equivalent posts in 1999 with the remit to develop new services. The goal was to create structured foundations for corporate strategic decision-making processes, and, after three years of development, that has become a reality in a package of services entitled ‘Manage your progress’. During the product development phase, three basic guidelines were always kept in the forefront: • knowledge, not just information; • integration of IP into the corporate business context; • complementary partners instead of just regional offices.

These new services offered by the Institute under the banner of ‘Manage your progress’ require a broad spectrum of technical competence which some of the regional contact points do not have. Only an examining authority can––indeed must––be able to cover all technical fields. For instance, the Institute employs specialists in organic, inorganic and materials chemistry just in the field of chemistry itself. There are also specialists in pharmaceuticals, two biotechnologists, one biochemist and one food specialist. Having made a virtue out of necessity, the IGE can offer every customer his or her own specialised contact person. Perhaps that is a typically Swiss combination.