Today, the Commission is launching a revamped SME Fund to provide small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with financial support for additional services to manage and protect their intellectual property rights. The stepping up in efforts to preserve SMEs’ intangible assets follows the great success of the Fund in 2023: 34 801 applications were received and 22 899 SMEs were supported financially to scale up and to become more attractive for investment. This represents a 55% increase compared to 2022.
The SME Fund is a grant scheme designed to help SMEs protect their intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks, industrial designs and new plant varieties, by providing financial support. The SME Fund can also finance a broad assessment of the intellectual property needs of the SMEs, taking into account the innovative potential of their intangible assets (IP Scan).
In 2024, in addition to these services, the SME Fund will also reimburse partially the representation costs charged by legal professionals relating to the preparation and the filing of European patent applications, including unitary patents, and the registration costs of plant varieties. In addition, in the context of the upcoming EU Toolbox against counterfeiting, the SME Fund will also finance legal advice on enforcement to help SMEs better combat intellectual property infringements.
For 78% of the companies supported by the SME fund in 2023, this was the first time they had protected their intellectual property. This is welcome, since intangible assets protected by intellectual property exponentially increase the value of a company compared to tangible assets, making them more attractive for investors.
More information
Details
- Publication date
- 22 January 2024
- Author
- Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs