London, Leeds & Exeter
Fri 7th Oct 2022
DiT Internalisation Fund offers grants of up to £9,000 for strategic IP advice
Services: Company and domain names, Design rights, IP strategy, Patents, Preparing for funding or flotation, Start up or scale up, Trade marks
Sectors:
The Department of International Trade is offering an Internationalisation Fund for businesses based in England as part of the European Regional Development Funding (ERDF). The scheme offers match-funded grants of between £1,000 - £9,000.
The Internationalisation Fund aims to support business growth by providing funding for advice to trade effectively overseas and to ‘support investment which facilitates international business success’.
In the context of intellectual property, this grant can be used to obtain strategic advice for your business. At Page White Farrer, there are a number of services we provide that can maximise the impact of your intellectual property as you expand your international trade. These include:
- freedom-to-operate reviews or clearance searches before entering a new overseas market;
- portfolio review of your existing IP rights to assess their suitability for protection in new markets;
- advice on enforcing your intellectual property rights overseas; and
- advice on an international filing strategy, including tactical advice as to where to file patent trade mark or design applications. This also covers what filing systems to use and what scope those applications should have.
The fund does not cover the direct cost of acquiring intellectual property assets, such as the registration fees in overseas IP offices.
To be eligible for the Internationalisation Fund, your company must be considered a micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME) having fewer than 250 employees. For full eligibility criteria, please visit https://www.great.gov.uk/campaigns/internationalisation-fund-for-english-businesses/.
Applications close late 2022 and London-based businesses are no longer able to apply.
This briefing is for general information purposes only and should not be used as a substitute for legal advice relating to your particular circumstances. We can discuss specific issues and facts on an individual basis. Please note that the law may have changed since the day this was first published in October 2022.
