The Bulgarian Innovations - Who Will Let the Genie out of the Bottle
Are our innovators timid or they are lacking financial support to stir up a technological revolution with their ideas
Bulgarian innovators have traditions and achievements, but... There are still many “Buts” that prevent innovative ideas from being realised and commercialised. Innovation is inherent to Bulgarians, but we are unable to walk the path from the idea to the product that can find its place on the Bulgarian and the global market. On the innovation map of Europe, together with Romania, we continue to be at the periphery with a reputation of timid innovators, even though the term “timid” is not very suiting to Bulgarian inventors. But data is data, and according to it, Bulgaria remains at its level of 2010 with respect to a number of indicators on the condition and development of the innovation potential, states the Innovation.bg report for 2018. The IT sector is the good exception.
The Fuel
The facts show that Bulgarians
are very creative and give birth to many ideas for innovations and new
technologies, they have free imagination and can invent all kinds of miracles
of technology. But the good news usually ends here, because good ideas get to
market realisation provided the existence of many other factors, which are
clearly missing in Bulgaria. Having a really good idea is no guarantee for
success. In order to walk the long path to the market, a lot of money is
needed, as well as a comprehensive infrastructure that favours the
commercialisation of any useful innovation. Our inventors note that if Western
Europe sees an interesting idea somewhere in the world, they are not
indifferent. Thus, the West acquires the know-how and the lasting result of the
revolutionary novelties. This is not the case with us. Some get awards for
innovation, but the five-minute glory rarely helps them to raise the necessary
financial resources for the high jump to the global market.
Produced in Bulgaria
Point L is a company specialised
in the development and production of automated systems for the management of
continuous technological processes in the industry. These systems are
relatively inexpensive, of guaranteed quality and have the so-called
distributed logic. They are almost 20 years old, but they continue to work and,
of course, are already at another stage of their technological development. In
2005, the company won the prize for a small innovative enterprise of the year,
which started to be given traditionally by the Applied Research and
Communications Foundation. “We did not
want to sell the technology and it remained entirely Bulgarian. We incorporate
it on our own and continue to do full engineering. This is an open-type system.
Big companies are trying to become monopolies that create customer dependency,
and we do not want to do that. Despite being small, we still continue to exist
and live by our work and our ideas, which we manage to take to a market
realisation,” says Petar Petrov, founder and manager of Point L. The team
continues to improve their first successful development, meanwhile, creating
new products. However, this requires a lot of time and consumes significant
financial resources. It’s usually in the power of rich companies, and this
small team of innovators is trying to play this big players’ game.
The Tortoise and the Hare
For years, the
Innovation.bg report of the Applied Research and Communications Foundation has been
showing that Bulgaria continues to lag behind the EU in terms of innovation and
that our companies do not invest enough in innovation. Whatever efforts have
been made, they have not led us ahead in the rankings. But that’s not the
point. It is more important to realise that it is innovation that gives the
real chance for the tortoise (in this case Bulgarian companies) to outrun the
hare (the big companies that dominate the markets). The question is how to find
the financial resources that play the role of fuel and with which innovation is
to be launched into the “market orbit”. We will hear Bulgarian
entrepreneurs explain how a small Bulgarian company alone can hardly make a big
breakthrough. If you don’t want to sell your company, this closes your doors to
the market. Existing in an environment of global competition, dominated by
business conglomerates and concerns, is a true heroism, often bordering with a
willingness to live on the brink of survival.
Sharks and Sprats
There are many Bulgarian
developments and inventions that get a patent. A lot of money is invested in
order to obtain patent protection on a particular territory. But if someone copies
your development, you have to fight alone against the theft of intellectual
property. For large multinational companies, this is not such a problem as it
is for the small players. In 2005, a Bulgarian company showed its patented
development at the Plovdiv Fair. A representative for Eastern Europe of a large
multinational company noticed it. Two years later, in one of the big technology
magazines, an innovative product of the same multinational company was
presented, which was actually based on the idea of the Bulgarian company. The
patent is open, it is accessible, and it is not a problem to borrow, but huge
financial resources are needed to start a patent lawsuit. The Bulgarian company
did not have such resources and could not afford to defend its rights in the
court. Thus, a patent is not a deterrent when the patent protection case must
be dealt with by the victim, without the Patent Office and the State behind
them. The big sharks eat the small fish and this is killing Bulgarian
innovations.
That’s
why it makes no sense to watch the movie “Timid Innovators” every year. If we
want to be a leading power in innovations, someone has to let the genie out of
the bottle, and also provide the financial mechanisms for that.