Patents+, Trademarks+ and Designs+: new non-repayable incentives for Intellectual Property

The allocation of new funds (EUR 46 million) will allow SMEs to submit applications for non-repayable incentives under the Patent+, Design+ and Trademark+ tenders.

Applications must be submitted by September-October 2022. Further details in the article.

When must the application be submitted?

The Italian Ministry of Economic Development has published the calls for tenders (for 2022) designed to provide subsidies for the patenting of technological innovations and the valorisation of ideas and projects. These are basically non-repayable funds for those who have already registered trademarks, patents, designs – or plan to do so in the near future – as part of a business activity.

The operation is part of the programme established by the industrial property reform for the three-year period 2021-2023.  Small and medium-sized enterprises will consequently be able to submit applications within the following timeframe

• from 27 September 2022 for the Patent+ tender;
• from 11 October 2022 for Designs+;
• from 25 October 2022 for Trademarks+.

Please note, the application process requires a certain amount of preparation time, hence you should act in advance.

Who can apply and what the PATENTS+ tender funds

Patents+ is the incentive for the economic valorisation of patents operated by Invitalia.

Each application involves a non-repayable subsidy up to a maximum of €140,000, which cannot exceed 80% of eligible costs.

The incentives are available to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, including newly established ones, with legal and operational headquarters in Italy, which meet at least one of the following requirements:

• owners or licensees of a patent for industrial invention granted in Italy after 1 January 2019;
• owners of a national application for a patent for industrial invention filed after 1 January 2020 with a search report with a “non-negative” result;
• owners of a European patent application or an international patent application filed after 1 January 2020 with a search report with a “non-negative” result which claims the priority of a prior national patent application.

Patents+ is designed to purchase specialised services for the economic exploitation of a patent in terms of profitability, productivity and market development. The incentive can finance the purchase of specialised services relating to:

• design, engineering and industrialisation: feasibility study; production design; study, design and engineering of the prototype; design and realisation of firmware exclusively for numerically controlled machines aimed at the production cycle; analysis and definition of the software architecture only if related to the process that is the subject of the patent application or the patent, excluding the realisation of the code itself; production testing; issue of product or process certifications strictly related to the patent that is the subject of the application;
• organisation and development: services for organisational design; organisation of production processes; IT governance services; analysis for the qualitative and quantitative definition of new geographical and sectorial markets; definition of communication strategy, promotion and control of distribution channels;
• technology transfer: drafting of non-disclosure agreements; drafting of patent licensing agreements; collaboration agreements between SMEs and research institutes/universities (sponsored research agreements);

Patents+ has been refinanced with a budget of EUR 30 million (of which EUR 10 million from PNRR resources). A 40% share of the PNRR financial resources, amounting to EUR 4 million, is allocated to the regions of southern Italy: Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, Apulia, Sardinia and Sicily.

Who can apply and what is funded by the DESIGN+ tender

Those who already own a registered design, or plan to register it in the near future, can apply for the non-repayable incentives to prototype it and place it on the market.

The incentives are granted up to 80% of eligible expenses within the maximum amount of €60,000.00 (sixty thousand) and in compliance with the ceiling amounts prescribed for each type of external specialised service requested:

• Research on the use of innovative materials (including materials derived from reuse, recycled materials and the like) – MAX € 5,000.00;
• Realisation of prototypes – MAX € 13,000.00;
• Realisation of moulds – MAX € 35,000.00;
• Technical consultation for the production chain aimed at putting the product/design into production – MAX € 8.000,00;
• Technical consultation for product or environmental sustainability certifications – MAX € 5.000,00;
• Specialised consultation for market orientation (e.g. business plan, marketing plan, market analysis, design of graphic layouts and texts for offline and online communication material) and for technical-economic evaluation of the design (for the purposes of transferability of the registered design) – MAX € 8,000.00
• Legal consultation for protection from infringement actions (legal actions relating to concrete cases) and/or for licence agreements (actually signed) – MAX € 2,500.00

The Design+ tender in 2022 is designed to support the innovative and competitive capacity of SMEs through the valorisation of designs/models on national and international markets.

The subject of the incentive is the realisation of a project aimed at the valorisation of designs registered with the UIBM, EUIPO or WIPO (in this case, Italy must be among the designated countries). The design must be registered on or after 1 January 2020 and in any case prior to the submission of the application and be valid.

Who can apply and what is funded by the Trademarks+ tender

If you have already registered a trademark, or about to do so, you can benefit from the non-repayable incentives of Trademarks+. Each company can submit more than one application for both Measure A and Measure B, up to a maximum of EUR 25,000.00.

The 2022 Trademarks+ tender aims to support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in protecting their trademarks abroad through the acquisition of specialised services:

• Measure A: incentives to facilitate the registration of European Union trademarks;
• Measure B: incentives for the registration of international trademarks.

On the date of submission of the application – 25 October 2022 at 9.30 a.m. – in order to access the call for applications, the company must:

• Measure A: have filed, as of 1 June 2019, the application for registration with EUIPO of the trademark that is the subject of the incentive and have complied with the payment of the relevant filing fees as well as have obtained the registration, with EUIPO, of the European Union trademark that is the subject of the application. Such registration must have taken place prior to the submission of the application;
• Measure B: having carried out, as from 1 June 2019, at least one of the following activities: (i) the filing of the application for registration with WIPO of a nationally registered trademark with UIBM or a European Union trademark registered with EUIPO and having complied with the payment of the relevant registration fees; (ii) filing an application for registration with WIPO of a trademark for which an application for registration has already been filed with UIBM or EUIPO and having paid the relevant registration fees; (iii) filing an application for subsequent designation of a trademark registered with WIPO and having paid the relevant registration fees. Applicants must also have obtained the publication of the application for registration in the International Register of WIPO of the trademark applied for.

For Measure A, incentives are granted for filing fees (80%) and for the acquisition of specialist services and in compliance with the maximum amounts provided for each type and in any case within the maximum total amount per trademark of € 6,000.00:

• Design of representation – MAX € 1,500.00;
• Filing assistance – MAX € 300.00;
• Novelty searches – MAX € 550.00 (Novelty search among Italian, European Union and international trademarks extended to Italy) and MAX € 1,500.00 (Novelty search among Italian, European Union and international trademarks extended to all EU countries);
• Legal assistance for trademark protection actions in response to oppositions following the filing of the application for registration – MAX € 1,500.00;
• Filing fees – MAX 80% of the incurred cost

For Measure B, incentives are granted for registration fees (90%) and for the acquisition of specialist services and in compliance with the maximum amounts provided for each type and in any case within the maximum overall amount per trademark of € 9,000.00.

• Design of representation – MAX € 1,650.00;
• Filing assistance – MAX € 350.00;
• Novelty searches – MAX € 630.00 (Novelty search among Italian, European Union and international trademarks extended to Italy), MAX € 1,800.00 (Novelty search among Italian, European Union and international trademarks extended to all EU countries) and MAX € 700.00 (Novelty search for each non-EU country);
• Legal assistance for actions to protect the trademark in response to oppositions following the filing of the application for registration – MAX € 1.800,00 (Legal assistance for actions to protect the trademark in response to oppositions following the filing of the application for registration) and MAX € 600,00 for each individual finding (Legal assistance for actions to protect the trademark in response to findings by national offices following the filing of the application for registration);
• Filing fees – MAX 90% of the cost incurred

For the same trademark it is possible to combine the benefits provided for Measures A and B by submitting a single application for both Measure A and Measure B.