Patterns of innovation and protection activities within service companies : results from a German study on service-intensive companies

There is an increasing number of researchers conducting empirical and theoretical investigations to better understand innovation and protection activities of service companies. In fact, previous analyses reveal that the protection topic is difficult to study, particularly when using traditional measurement concepts like patents. Thus, a different analytical conceptual frame has been developed in order to investigate deeper knowledge about service innovation protection and corporate strategic behaviour. -- Service innovation ; Protection strategies ; Service companies ; Study ; Germany