Things
Voucher 3i – Investing in Innovation is the incentive in favor of innovative startups for the acquisition of consultancy services, exclusively provided by service providers, necessary to enhance and protect their innovation processes in Italy and abroad through a patent for industrial invention, pursuant to the provisions of the decree of the Minister of Economic Development of 18 November 2019. The benefit, promoted by the Ministry of Economic Development and managed by Invitalia, has a financial allocation of 19.5 million euros for the three-year period 2019 -2021.
Who is it aimed at?
The voucher is intended for innovative startups, i.e. joint-stock companies, also established in a cooperative form, whose shares or quotas representing the share capital are not listed on a regulated market or on a multilateral trading system. To be considered as such, an innovative startup must also: - be established no more than 60 months ago, - be based in Italy, or in one of the member states of the European Union or in states adhering to the Agreement on the European Economic Area, a condition of having a production site or branch in Italy, - registering, starting from the second year of activity, a total value of annual production not exceeding 5 million euros, - not distributing, and not having distributed, profits, - having , as its exclusive or main corporate purpose, the development, production and marketing of innovative products or services with high technological value, - not having been established by a merger, corporate split or following the transfer of a company or business unit, - possess at least one of the following additional requirements:1. research and development expenses must be equal to or greater than 15% of the greater of cost and total value of production2. the total staff employed - as partners, employees or collaborators in any capacity - must be made up of at least one third of PhD students, PhDs or researchers, or at least two thirds of individuals in possession of a master's degree3. the company must be the owner, custodian or licensee of an industrial property right (patent) or original registered software, provided that they are directly related to the corporate purpose and business activity.
What does it predict
Voucher 3i is aimed at the acquisition of specialist consultancy services for patenting, through the issuing of vouchers for: - verifying the patentability of the invention and carrying out - prior art searches prior to filing the patent application (euro 2,000 + VAT) - drafting of the patent application and filing of the same at the Italian Patent and Trademark Office (4,000 euros + VAT) - filing abroad of an application that claims the priority of a previous national patent application (6,000 euros + VAT) . The incentive is granted under the de minimis regime. Each innovative startup can request the granting of a maximum of 3 vouchers for each type of service in one year (12 months counted from the first request): in total, therefore, no more than 9 vouchers. Furthermore, vouchers requested for the same service must refer to different inventions/patent applications.
