INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION METHODS


If innovative goods, services and practices are available to competitors, then market advantage can be lost. Formal and informal methods are used to protect the intellectual property of businesses. The BCS collected information from all businesses about the methods that were in use to protect their intellectual property during the year ended 30 June 2013. Businesses were not asked to report the number of times each of the methods was used. The focus in this release is on innovation-active businesses and the types of intellectual property protection methods they reported, however, complete data for all business will be released as part of Selected Characteristics of Australian Business, 2012-13 (cat. no. 8167.0).

INNOVATION-ACTIVE BUSINESSES: Intellectual property protection methods(a)(b), by employment size, 2012-13
	0-4 persons	5-19 persons	20-199 persons	200 or more persons	Total
	%	%	%	%	%
Patents	3.2	3.4	7.6	23.1	4.0
Registration of design	2.0	4.2	4.9	25.7	3.4
Copyright or trademark	12.7	14.3	23.0	54.7	14.9
Secrecy/confidentiality arrangements(c)	11.4	16.8	22.5	41.0	15.0
Complexity of product design	3.1	4.9	6.3	11.9	4.2
Any intellectual property protection methods used	25.4	29.7	42.3	70.8	29.3
No intellectual property protection methods used	74.6	70.3	57.9	29.2	70.7
(a) Proportions are of innovation-active businesses in each output category.
(b) Businesses could identify more than one type of intellectual property protection method.
(c) Secrecy includes electronic protection methods.

Almost one in three innovation-active businesses had used some method of intellectual property protection during the year ended 30 June 2013. The most common intellectual property protection methods used were
copyright or trademark and secrecy/confidentiality agreements (both 15%). Copyright or trademark was the most common intellectual property protection method used for all employment size ranges with the exception of businesses with 5-19 persons employed. These businesses were most likely to use secrecy/confidentiality agreements (17%).

Businesses with 200 or more persons employed were more than twice as likely to use any methods to protect intellectual property as businesses with 0-4 persons employed (71% compared with 25%).

By industry, the use of any intellectual property protection methods ranged from 12% of businesses in the Transport, postal and warehousing and Agriculture, forestry and fishing industries, to 54% of businesses in the Information media and telecommunications industry.

Further data relating to intellectual property protection methods can be accessed via the Downloads tab.