These are the results of Vinge’s second Trademarks Survey. More companies than previously consider that the rights are important and several think that the risk of infringement has increased. Forty-eight per cent consider that the risk has significantly increased. This represents an increase of 8 percentage points since 2008.
The results of this year’s survey show however that companies spend far more money on protecting tangible assets such as premises and machinery than they do on intellectual property rights. A conservative estimate of Swedish companies with an annual turnover of at least SEK 50 million and at least 100 employees indicates that these companies spend approximately SEK 3 billion per annum on protecting tangible assets. This figure may be compared with SEK 1.15 billion expended on intangible asset protection.
“Despite the fact that intangible assets may constitute up to half and sometimes more of these companies market value, in relative terms nowhere near as much money is spent protecting these assets from infringement which in the long-term may prove to be very expensive” say Per Eric Alvsing, an intellectual property expert at Vinge.
Forty-seven per cent of the companies that participated in the survey consider that intellectual property rights are very important for them. At the same time, only 24 per cent of them say that this issue is a priority.
“It is possible that companies believe that it is difficult to acquire effective protection for trademarks and other intellectual property rights or that these issues do not get the attention they deserve within the organisation itself” says Per Eric Alvsing.
The significance of a trademark to a company’s success is appreciably greater for large companies with operations outside the Nordic region. Trademarks are considered important success factors in countries in the Middle East, China and the rest of Asia and the United States and North America. Almost 100 per cent of the companies that operate on these markets state that a trademark is a very large or fairly large success factor for them.
For further information contact:
Per Eric Alvsing, partner Vinge, + 46 8 614 30 14, mobile: + 46 70 714 30 14, email: per.eric.alvsing@vinge.se
Boo Ehlin, Head of Communications, mobile: + 46 70 429 33 87
email: boo.ehlin@vinge.se
