New financial support scheme to fund IP Audits for UK SMEs.

The UKIPO have launched a new financial support scheme, IP Advance, which was launched as a pilot on 15 July 2024.

IP Advance is a tiered funding programme designed to provide support to SMEs at the right stage in their innovation journey. It is intended to provide targeted advice and support to help businesses better understand their Intellectual Property (IP) rights, develop an IP strategy, and where appropriate, provide financial support to implement that strategy.

Two levels of support are available:

IP Audit provides part-funding of £2,250 (including VAT) towards the cost of an IP audit, conducted by a suitably qualified IP professional. The business must contribute £750 (including VAT) towards the overall cost of the audit. The business will receive a bespoke IP Audit report with recommendations, cost projections and a suggested timeline for implementation. As part of IP Audit, the business will also have a follow-up meeting to discuss the report’s recommendations with the IP professional.
IP Access provides a contribution of up to £2,250 (including VAT) for IP professional advice to progress an IP management strategy or implement recommendations from their IP audit. The Business must contribute a minimum of 50% towards the cost of the services carried out by their IP professional under IP Access to qualify for support. This may cover 50% of the service charge for preparing and filing a new UK patent application, trade mark application or design application.

Businesses can apply for one or both levels of funding; receiving IP Audit funding is not a prerequisite to receiving IP Access funding.

For SMEs in Northern Ireland, IP Advance will be delivered exclusively through Invest Northern Ireland, who should be contacted to enquire about this support (https://www.investni.com/support-for-business/innovation-research-and-development/technical-advice/protect-your-intellectual-property).

SMEs identified as benefitting from specialist support in the management of IP-related matters and engaged in a business support programme with Invest Northern Ireland, are eligible to apply for the scheme. All IP Advance applications are subject to an assessment and funding is not guaranteed.

Time is Ticking: Only Three More Months to Secure UK Address for Service

29th September 2023

Starting from 1 January 2023, it will be obligatory for owners of UK Trade Marks and Designs to have a UK address for service for new contentious registry proceedings involvin...

A Guide to UK Copyright Law

3rd April 2023

Copyright is a property right whereby the owner of the copyrighted work may undertake or authorise other persons to carry out certain acts in respect of the work.

Data Purposes

This list represents the purposes of the data collection and processing.
- Marketing
- Analytics

Technologies Used

- Cookies
- Pixel

Data Collected

This list represents all (personal) data that is collected by or through the use of this service.

- App updates
- Click path
- Date and time of visit
- Device information
- Downloads
- Flash version
- Location information
- IP address
- JavaScript support
- Pages visited
- Purchase activity
- Referrer URL
- Usage data
- Widget interactions
- Browser information

Legal Basis

In the following the required legal basis for the processing of data is listed.

- Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. a GDPR

Location of Processing

- European Union

Retention Period

The retention period is the time span the collected data is saved for the processing purposes. The data needs to be deleted as soon as it is no longer needed for the stated processing purposes.
The Retention Period depends on the type of the saved data. Each client can choose how long Google Analytics retains data before automatically deleting it.
Data Recipients

- Google Ireland Limited, Alphabet Inc., Google LLC

Data Protection Officer of Processing Company

Below you can find the email address of the data protection officer of the processing company.

https://support.google.com/policies/contact/general_privacy_form

Transfer to Third Countries

This service may forward the collected data to a different country. Please note that this service might transfer the data outside of the EU/EEA and to a country without the required data protection standards. If the data is transferred to the US, there is a risk that your data can be processed by US authorities, for control and surveillance measures, possibly without legal remedies. Below you can find a list of countries to which the data is being transferred. This can be for different reasons like storing or processing.

United States of America,Singapore,Chile,Taiwan

Click here to read the privacy policy of the data processor https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en

Click here to opt out from this processor across all domains https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de

Click here to read the cookie policy of the data processor https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies?hl=en

Storage Information

Below you can see the longest potential duration for storage on a device, as set when using the cookie method of storage and if there are any other methods used.

- Maximum age of cookie storage: 2 years

Please upgrade your browser. This website is not compatible with Internet Explorer.