Either way, they tend not to be exploiting it properly. But there is a sizeable group for whom it is relevant. These can be categorised into three types. Secondly, there are those who have used patent information, and are aware of it, but could use it better. Thirdly, there are those who don't use patent information, but really ought to.
Patent offices have a duty to do something.
Today, patent offices view patent information as simply a tool for the patent examiners. But while there is no legal obligation, I think they have a moral obligation to help the public use that information. After all, we've got this huge, very valuable, resource, yet patent offices are not doing enough to publicise its availability - either to SMEs, or to the public in general. However, this is because they tend to use patent agents as their information intermediaries, rather than specialist patent searchers. So the ideal scenario would be one in which patent offices promoted the value of patent data, but did not attempt to provide the information directly to SMEs themselves.