O impacto das bibliotecas digitais de patentes no processo de inovação em Portugal

Abstract

Information is an essential resource to the functioning and survival of organizations. In order for organizations to compete in a global environment, with rapid changes, where they move nowadays, they need to obtain information that’ll allow them to innovate and acquire competitive advantages in the markets they operate in. Scientific and technical information associated to Industrial Property – Patent Information - can provide further competitiveness through the transfer of technology that it motivates and is of vital economic importance due to the innovation that it stimulates. After analysing several Indicators, National and International Studies, we realized that Portugal is not using the resources of the Industrial Property’s records in a satisfactory way, not taking advantage of its benefits. The data published shows that university research centres are not living up to their full potential when it comes to using this type of information since it could, when due integrated into research projects, motivate innovation, provide competitive advantages, and increase the number of IP records. This could lead to an increase of the number of new companies and to economic growth. We support that a coherent and effective use of Patent Digital Libraries that contain information resulting from R&D activities with industrial applications can contribute to the increase of creativity and support problem- solving in research, developing innovation through the resulting new products and processes. This research attempts to answer the question about the relationship between the degree of knowledge and level of usage of Patent Digital Libraries by research centres in Portugal and their contribution to the innovation process. The hypothesis to validate is that University Research Centres that know and use the information in the PDL are more innovative since they contribute with more patents and they generate more new products and processes, giving birth to more spin-offs with industrial applications.