ANALYSIS OF THE PROTECTION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF SMES WITHIN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Innovation and the protection of intellectual property are currently considered to be important assumption of the competitiveness of firms. The aim of the paper is to map the development of small and medium-sized companies in the Czech Republic and find out whether there have been significant changes in the sphere of intellectual property for this category of enterprises in the analysed periods 2004-2006 and 2006-2008. Research focus on small and medium-sized enterprises stems from the fact that from the point of the total number of entities it is this category of enterprises which dominates in the national economy. The analysis is based on data from CSO which have been obtained in the framework of the survey of innovative activity of enterprises in the years 2006 and 2008.