The SME Fund is a voucher incentive system specifically dedicated to small and medium-sized enterprises, created and managed by EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) since 2022.
The action specifically aims to help SMEs based in Europe and Ukraine exploit their intellectual property assets by providing financial support for intellectual property (IP) related costs.
Beneficiaries
SMEs established in one of the EU Member States or in Ukraine
Eligible Interventions
The objective of the SME Fund 2024 is to financially support SMEs that wish to:
- benefit from an IP pre-diagnosis service (IP Scan) and/or pre-diagnosis services relating to the application of IP rights (IP Scan Enforcement);
- directly protect their trademarks, designs and models through national, regional, European or international IP systems;
- protect their patents at national or European level, including prior art search services provided or coordinated by Member States' IP offices (Member States' IP Offices and Visegrad Patent Institute) and legal representation costs for the processing and the filing of European patent applications (exclusive representatives of the EPO list);
- protect their community plant varieties.
There are four types of vouchers:
a) Voucher 1 – IP pre-diagnosis services (IP Scan)
b) Voucher 2 – Protection of trademarks, designs and models
c) Voucher 3 – Patents
d) Voucher 4 – Community property rights for community plant varieties
Facilitation
Vouchers apply only to the registration of new intellectual property rights; renewals of intellectual property rights are not eligible. Vouchers have a limited time to be used. Therefore, SMEs are invited to apply for a voucher when they plan to carry out one of the eligible activities within the next two months.
a) IP pre-diagnosis services (IP Scan) – Voucher 1
Voucher 1 will cover IP pre-diagnosis services (IP Scan) and IP rights enforcement pre-diagnosis services (IP Scan Enforcement) for
a maximum grant amount of €1,350.00 per beneficiary.
EU SMEs will be entitled to request a refund of 90% of the cost of each voucher.
b) Protection of trademarks, designs and models – Voucher 2
Up to €1,000.00 per beneficiary for:
- protection of trademarks, designs and models at national, regional and EU level;
- protection of trademarks, designs and models at an international level.
c) Patents – Voucher 3
To apply for a patent-related activity, SMEs will need to indicate in the application form, for information purposes, whether they hold an IP pre-diagnosis certificate issued by an authorized national IP pre-diagnosis service provider in an EU Member State or if they have received the Horizon IP Scan service.
SMEs are encouraged to first request an IP pre-diagnosis (IP Scan) service to maximize the benefits of any patent-related activity.
(i) The maximum amount of the voucher is €3,500.00 per beneficiary for the following activities:
patent precedence searches provided or coordinated by the intellectual property offices of the Member States and the official administrative costs applied by the IP offices for the protection of national and European patents, which will be reimbursed by 75% up to a maximum of €1,500.00
(ii) The legal costs for drafting and filing a new European patent application will be reimbursed by 50% up to a maximum of €2,000.00.
d) Community right for community plant varieties - Voucher 4
The maximum amount of the voucher is €1,500.00 per beneficiary for the community protection of plant varieties. The online filing and examination fees applied by the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) will be refunded by 75%.
Presentation
By 6 December 2024, unless early expiry due to exhaustion of funds.
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
