Friday Mar 29, 2024

Protect the ideas of your SME

Thousands of innovative ideas are born daily within the companies, but how many of them are registered and patented?

If we have an entrepreneurial spirit, some can become great business ideas and even profit from them if we have managed to target the target. Industrial property rights are a world unknown to many SMEs, and because of the importance of their knowledge, there are organizations such as  Cevipyme ; a support center for  SMEs  in the area of management of industrial property rights, and the OEPM, under the Ministry of Energy, Industry and Tourism.

If you want to market your brand, it will be important to register it. Before that, you will have to define your image correctly and study in which markets it would fit. In addition, if we are going to take the idea to other countries, the brand will have to generate an interest in them, as well as be in accordance with the prohibitions of the country in particular, for example.

Many will ask what advantages can bring a brand or register a product. The main advantages would be the competitive advantage for exclusivity rights, the possibility of pursuing plagiarism and imitations, specify the origin of your products and make a differentiation of them.

Cevipyme was born from the joint initiative of the General Directorate of Industry and Small and Medium Enterprises, the Patent and Trademark Office and the Fundetec Foundation. From there they help SMEs and their associations by providing information, free advice and recommendations to manage and make profitable the ideas on industrial property protection, once obtained and registered.

These agencies have teams of specialist advisers who solve SMEs’ doubts about the commercial name, brand, patents, utility models, designs and industrial secrets, etc. Through them SMEs know all necessary to perform certain services related to industrial property procedures documentation, newsletters technological surveillance, monitoring patents, formalization of certain requests and requirements for trademarks and patents, as well as different types of online training that ensure a good development of the protection of the ideas of SMEs.

In short, very complete support centers for a sector as important as that of SMEs, since although they form the largest group of the business sector, they are not always well accompanied to guide them on the right path.

New aid for applications for patents and utility models

In this context and in view of the needs of many companies or entrepreneurs regarding protection, the Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM) has recently convened the granting of subsidies to promote applications for patents and utility models, both as abroad for 2015. A call that reflects the need for information that entrepreneurs and SMEs have in this field.

Those interested can find two programs:

– One for patent applications and utility models, offering financial support to individuals and SMEs to recover the cost of fees for obtaining patents and utility models. In this project, the budget allocated amounts to 231,000 euros.

– A second program for the promotion of applications for patents and utility models abroad. Here, the budget available for individuals and the private business sector is 4,015,000 dollars, to support the recovery of costs that imply both the payment of fees to different countries to obtain them, as well as the translations to the specific languages of the countries to which they are intended to extend such patents or utility models.

In 2015, the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism has made an increase in the percentage of aid in the international program from 80% to 90% for individuals and SMEs, and for the rest of applicants have increased by 70% at 80%.

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