Protection of intellectual property as a means of evaluating innovation performance

Intellectual property is an important tool that helps to improve the competitive position of firms in the market. Currently, companies have no motivation to protect intellectual property because they have enough experience in order to handle the entire process themselves. Commercialization of innovations into protectical use does not currently exist without the protection of intellectual property. Innovative activity is related to the definition of innovation process. Innovation performance follows the innovative activities of the company but as innovation activity it is not the property of the company. It is the result of the innovation process and arises from interactions among competing firms in a given market situation. Innovation performance (implementation of innovation) stands up to the very end of the innovation process. For measurement it is necessary to understand and describe the whole innovation process and to identify factors that may affect the ultimate realization of innovation. Innovation performance is generally considered as a crucial component of long-term competitiveness of countries and regions. The paper introduces innovative performance and patent activity of the Czech Republic on the basis of secondary research. From the primary research it may be inferred that measurement of innovative performance can have high impact on the speed of adaptability of companies to changes and development. The aim of the paper is to highlight that innovation and patent activity and their measurement are a prerequisite for the development of companies. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.