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The VIVACE Program - Innovation support program for SMEs
 In order to take advantage of the possibilities deriving from Hungary's accession to the European Patent Convention and the Community Trademark System as well as to reduce the arising disadvantages, the HPO prepared - in agreement with the administrative authorities and professional bodies concerned - the Action Plan Promoting Industrial Property Competitiveness of Entrepreneurs (the Hungarian acronym of which is: VIVACE). VIVACE is aimed at heightening awareness of the intellectual property system within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and at developing their industrial property culture.
All over the world, SMEs play a significant role in economy; they are of considerable importance in Hungary, too. The entrepreneurial sphere accounts for 36% of the GDP and they give work to 67% of employees, that is, to more than 1.5 million people. At the end of 2006, there were 841 thousand enterprises in Hungary, of which 99.9% were SMEs. Within this, the rate of micro-enterprises with less than 10 employees was particularly high. |
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Due to their economic importance and role in employment, the strengthening of SMEs and the considerable improvement of their performance constitute one of the most essential factors of the future competitiveness of the Hungarian economy. 75% of the SMEs working in industry are inactive from the point of view of innovation. Only 2-3% of the enterprises, that is approximately 2-3 thousand, belong to pioneer, knowledge-intensive companies capable of developing genuine ideas. |
Hungary's IP situation compared to the rest of Europe
In a knowledge-based economy, the effective management of intellectual property is becoming a more and more important condition for coping with market competition. This calls for the development of the industrial property culture of enterprises, for the enhancement of their awareness of the industrial property system and for the strengthening of their industrial property skill.
As far as the use of patent information is concerned, Hungary takes a place in the middle of European countries. It is advisable to heighten the awareness of the industrial property system in the circles of SMEs by means of campaigns, special training programs and by applying up-to-date information and communication techniques. The intellectual property-related services of chambers, incubators, science parks and institutions supporting enterprises should be improved. Furthermore, it is indispensable to promote all the efforts that aim at the reduction of the costs of acquiring and maintaining intellectual property rights.
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Summary Innovation Index
An extract from the European Innovation Scoreboard - 2005
Positions of the Hungarian innovation parameters measured by the survey. Innovation capability, entrepreneurial skills and IP consciousness goes hand in hand. |
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Situation of Hungarian SMEs according to the VIVACE Survey - 2006
The Hungarian Patent Office in co-operation with the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Trade interviewed more than 500 Hungarian SMEs on their business-, economic situation, the impact of EU accession on their business operation, their marketing approach, innovation activities, and IP awareness and activity. The data was gathered by personal interviews, providing feedback on a questionnaire containing 45 items.
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Most of the SMEs reported increasing challenges.
Most frightening, loosing profitability was indicated by 45% of the
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72% of the SMEs do not spend an Euro on R+D (which is in line with the innovation capability figures shown on the previous page). An other 10% spends less on R+D as it would be advisable by the Lisbon agenda. 3% of the SMEs have R+D funding in line with the agenda, while 15% invests more than expected in innovation. |
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Probably one of the most mind-making and positive feedback of the survey was that innovation proved to be a good financial decision in most of the cases. 9 out of 10 SMEs who have ever applied innovative actions were better off, or at least have not lost financially on the deal.
This fact should be known by much more market actors. |
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IP awareness amongst SMEs, knowledge and application of the different forms of protection is shown by the figure. |
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Service requests made by the SMEs interviewed. |
3 major pillars of the VIVACE program
As a result of HPO's proposals, and the governmental policy giving more emphasize on supporting the innovative activities, as well as of Hungary's joining to the EPC the government has issued a decree on the development of an SMEs' Activity Plan. The SMEs' Activity Plan sets the task to increase the competitiveness of SMEs by the means as follows:
- The development of higher value-added IP services,
- The development of the IP information and education system,
- The development of economic incentives.
1. Development of higher value-added IP services
The most important infrastructural condition of the development of higher value-added IP services is the development of the IP information and Education network. HPO
HPO makes efforts to develop the network of IP information centers within the higher educational bodies. Thus the second national site of the PATLIB centers, operating under standardized service provisional requirements set by the contracting states of European Patent Convention, was opened in the North of Hungary in co-operation with the University of Miskolc 2 years ago. There are already 2 more additional PATLIB centers - Debrecen and Szeged - in Eastern Hungary, one in Sopron, Western Hungary, while a new center is going to be opened in the most dynamic region (Győr city) at the second half of 2007.
An important new segment was added to the National IP Information and Education Network with the joining of the regional information centers of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce, the NGO possessing the largest contact capital and web of offices of the nation. Service providers of those centers were educated and examined by HPO. Our office is continuously providing updated information on IP issues, information materials, flyers, educational materials, etc., provides hot-line professional support, and helps the information sharing activity of the centers.
2. Development of the IP information and education system
Development of an education program providing basic IP knowledge to the entrepreneurs is on its way in co-operation with the corporate NGO system of the SMEs, having countrywide office network
HPO continues to develop the IP e-learning package, which - next to the re-engineering and updating of the patent module - will cover each protection areas, and will be accessible on the Internet. E-learning is a perfect tool to educate the SME sector which builds up of entrepreneurs having few free time, wishing to follow their own pace of education.
Development of the IP education in the academia is continuing, since the subject is not yet integrated into the curricula of every universities of Hungary.
In 2007 the HPO's target is to continue to organize "industry specific" in-training education for the public sector, for the professionals of the enforcement and litigation.
3. Development of economic incentives
The Hungarian Government applies economic incentives to promote SMEs' IP activities.
- A special type of tax, the innovation tax was introduced in 2003, to foster the national level of innovation. The tax flows into the innovation fund, that supports different innovation sound developments, programs, and investments.
- The government encourages to foster industrial property activities of the SME sector. Acquisition of international protection is aided via a fund application system, while acquisition of national protection will be aided via the tax refund system from 2005.
According to the renewed application fund system in force since 2003, 90% of the costs related to obtaining international patent protection could be subsidized by the state.
A new parallel application fund system became available in 2004, which also supports the costs of prototyping, the preparation of the 0. series, and the preparation of utilization of SMEs.
There was a leap in the indirect motivation of IP activities as well in 2005. The affiliation tax system has been modified giving opportunity for SMEs to deduct the costs of obtaining and maintaining national protection (patent, utility model, and design) from their tax burdens.
Expected results of the VIVACE program
The expected results of the VIVACE program are as follows:
- Innovative SMEs start to consciously manage its intellectual property,
- Increasing number of patent protected products,
- Increased recognition of intellectual property, and increased utilization of them,
- Increased licensing activity.
All of the above conditions help to increase the competitiveness of SMEs.
Other tools of innovation promotion
Effective cooperation with a wide spectrum of professional organizations
HPO established cooperation with a lot of institutions: Hungarian Association for the Protection of Industrial Property and Copyright that supported HPO's activity by its high level events and training organizing work, Hungarian Copyright Forum Association, Hungarian Association of Competition Law, Association of Hungarian Inventors, as part of its activity, made efforts to supply industrial property information to private inventors, Hungarian academy of Sciences, Hungarian Innovation Association, that hosted the 15th competition of young European scientists, Jedlik Ányos Society, Hungarian Academy of Engineering, Foundation for Researcher Students, Novofer Foundation.
HPO operates an extensive homepage system to provide information for every kind of interested visitors from the "newcomers" to the professionals.
Web based promotion
New ages require new ways of communication. Internet is the key to reach our customers today.
An "Entrepreneurial information site" was launched as part of the VIVACE program at the beginning of 2005, which provides hand-on, practical information to those who are interested in the innovation business. This site was for some time the third most visited page of HPO's web based information system. Based on the success of the Entrepreneur's site, a specific program was launched in September 2005, called VIP campaign. The several months long information campaign focused on the commercialization of innovation including managerial, economic and business issues - less closely related to protection of IP rights - to foster overall business success of innovation active SME's.
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An extract of the web-based information campaign called VIP |
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