The Costs of Using Formal Intellectual Property Rights: A Survey on Small Innovative Enterprises in Latin America

This document analyzes the perception of small innovative enterprises (SIE) in Latin America towards the effectiveness of the legal protection of intellectual property rights (IPR). To analyze the costs of using IPR, we surveyed 352 SIEs from Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. We found evidence of SIEs not knowing how the IP system works, and most of them considering that knowing how it works is not important for business performance. We find strong differences between countries in the need to hire legal services to apply for IPR. We also fin differences in the perception of the IP system efficiency, and the evaluations are not related to the country´s IPR enforcement (Park 2008). We also find differences in the perception of disadvantage to protect their IPR if imitated by a big firm. This difference is related to the country´s IPR enforcement