SERVICE PROVIDER SELECTION CRITERIA AND SELECTION AT GENIP OY

Abstract

When applying a patent for abroad the patent applicant needs to have a local representative in the country in question. Those purchased patent agency services are a relevant part of the process of getting a patent for an invention. This research concerns service provider selection in order to serve the patent applicants in their patent applications abroad.

Due to dissatisfaction towards its service providers there was a discussion in Genip Oy about creating the criteria based on which the service providers should be chosen. The objective of the research was firstly to find out what those criteria would be and further to utilize them concretely in the selection process.

The research was done as an action research. In the first phase there were covered internal company interviews based on which the needed criteria for service provider selection were set. After that a questionnaire based on those was sent to possible service providers and the received replies further evaluated comparing to the set criteria.

The needed criteria were found out and created during the action process and a questionnaire as a helping tool for choosing service providers was built. The actual selection process is still continuing but the important issues concerning the selection have been introduced.