Business budgeting for 2025? IP funding is available to UK SMEs
January is a key month for business owners, as it marks the beginning of a new year, and provides an opportunity for reflection on the successes and failures of the previous year. Many business owners use January as a time to set goals, make plans, and create a business strategy for the upcoming year. In planning for the year ahead, protecting your IP should not be overlooked.
IP is an important asset for any business. It is vital that your intellectual property is properly protected, in order to safeguard your innovation.
There are many sources of funding available to assist SMEs in the UK at various stages of their innovation journey - whether that’s harvesting your IP, protecting your IP (in the form of a patent, trade mark or design application), or monetising your IP.
- The UK Intellectual Property Office’s IP Advance Scheme provides part-funding towards the cost of an IP audit, and/or part-funding for professional IP advice to help businesses devise an IP management strategy, or to implement recommendations from their IP audit.
- Invest NI’s Technical Development Incentive encourages businesses to engage in innovation activities such as product development, process improvement, and the identification and protection of intellectual property. Up to £15,000 of funding is available to SMEs in Northern Ireland.
- Invest NI’s Project Definition provides assistance to businesses that have not previously carried out any R&D. Up to £25,000 of funding is available to NI businesses to investigate and plan your idea, make and test a prototype, experiment and refine your design, or handle intellectual property costs.
- The European Commission’s EIC Accelerator Grant is available to UK start-ups and SMEs with capacity to scale up. Up to £15m is available for tech-based businesses to undertake innovation activities.
- Innovate UK offers Smart Grants to UK registered research and technology organisations that carry out all of their R&D project activity in the UK and intend to commercially exploit the project results from the UK. A share of £25m funding is available to businesses across the UK.
- UK companies working on innovative projects in science and technology may be eligible to claim R&D tax credits for tax relief on R&D projects.
- The Patent Box offers a reduced corporation tax rate of 10% for companies which exploit patented inventions in the UK. The reduced 10% rate applies to profits derived from: selling patented products; licensing or sale of the patent rights; and infringement and compensation payments; and is available to businesses across the UK. The Patent Box is also available for human and veterinary medicines, plant breeding and plant varieties.
Many business support initiatives are currently available to SMEs in the UK, and can be used in conjunction with professional IP advice to maximise the commercial value of intangible assets for businesses.
If you need help with developing an IP strategy for your business, or protecting your IP, then please get in touch with Helen Lavery, or your usual FRKelly contact.
