Wykorzystanie ochrony własności przemysłowej przez polskich producentów w przemyśle spożywczym

The article discusses the problem of using the intellectual property protection by food industry enterprises in Poland. There are both the theoretical bases of the intangible assets protection – its importance for the enterprise, the characteristic of the particular protected forms of property (inventions, trademarks, utility models, industrial designs and know-how) as well as the benefits of their possession for owners. Using the database of the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland for the Polish food industrial stock corporations, there were evaluated the state of industrial property protection in this sector. The end of the paper shows the possibilities of using the support for obtaining the industrial property protection within the Innovative Economy Programme.