The European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights has published a new report titled “Licensing activities by SMEs: evidence from EU trade mark owners”.

The report suggests that 7.5% of SMEs owning EUTMs licensed them to others during the period 2013 to 2017 and that the estimated annual average revenue from licensing EUTMs is nearly €65,000 per firm, equivalent to 5.7% of the average turnover of European SMEs.

The Observatory summarises the aims of the report:

During recent years, EUIPO has published several studies highlighting the virtuous cycle between IP and economic performance, with a special focus on SMEs. This new study contributes to this narrative by examining the revenues that SMEs can derive from their EU Trade Marks by licensing them to other companies. The owner of an EUTM can use it to identify the goods or services produced, or it can grant permission to another company (licensee) to use the trade mark in exchange for an economic benefit. Trade mark licensing is thus one way to derive the economic benefit from the IPR. The report values a firm’s stock of EUTMs based on observable characteristics of a sample of SMEs that own EUTMs and license them to others

Read the Executive Summary (in English) or download the full report. And look out for more analysis of this report in the December issue of the HouseMARQUES newsletter.

Other recent reports

The Observatory also published two reports on 27 November:

• "Illegal IPTV in the European Union – Research on Online business models infringing Intellectual Property Rights – Phase 3" (read the press release)
• "Online copyright infringement in the European Union" (read the report)