A New Year - initiatives and funding to support your IP

The New Year is a great time for client companies to explore and tap into a whole range of innovation support on offer – including help and grants to review and better manage your IP and intangibles. Indeed, the Inngot team has a detailed knowledge of the business support landscape and these funding packages and can help to connect you to this support.

While Inngot’s main focus is on driving forward the discussion around how companies can be helped to identify and unlock the value in their IP and intangible assets (which is why we developed our innovative online toolkit), we do a lot more than that, including being involved with business support initiatives in the UK and overseas and helping educate advisors on IP matters.

This is in addition to our services offering, comprising bespoke valuations and international assignments for strategy and policy work.

IP Education

Examples of Inngot’s IP education services include:

• A bespoke set of business-friendly IP guides and video cases studies created for IPOS International (Singapore);

• ‘Train the trainer’ events for IP professionals across Europe who are delivering IP audit services as part of the EUIPO-administered IP Scan service (funded by its SME Fund), where our experts share our experiences and methodologies based on conducting hundreds of IP audits and valuations over the past 10+ years;

• Training on IP identification and monetisation issues in many other parts of the world, including South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Denmark, to list just a few.

Inngot has a varied client base and assists a range of companies, from start-ups to multinationals. We also work with government agencies and NGOs delivering IP and innovation initiatives, such as our involvement with the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO), supporting delivery of their IP Masterclasses (this week saw the start of the 2022 programme of classes) with a module on IP commercialisation.

The next series of the IPO’s Masterclasses is focussed on staff from business support networks across the UK. These attendees (virtual at the moment, of course!) are tasked with delivering innovation support on behalf of organisations like Innovate UK EDGE, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Growth Hubs, Local Enterprise Partnerships and the UK’s network of Business and IP Centres.

These advisers are tasked with understanding more about IP so they can make sure they are providing their clients with the right information to help them:

• Better protect their Intellectual Property and intangible assets

• Understand what IP and intangibles they own

• Get an idea of how IP and intangibles contribute value to their business

• Strategically manage their IP and intangibles to drive growth

• Explore licensing and other IP commercialisation options

• Direct businesses to further help, including identifying funding that might be available to them to help with IP audits, tech evaluations, and IP valuations.

IP grants

There are many innovation-related grants on offer, some targeting specific industries, others aimed at particular UK regions; but arguably the two most widely-used programmes for SMEs wanting to better understand their IP and intangible assets, and their real value, are the IPO’s long-running IP Audit Plus scheme and the more recent follow-on IP Access scheme, which was launched last year.

Both of these schemes are administered on behalf of the IPO by bodies including Innovate UK Edge in England, the Welsh Government, and Scottish Enterprise and Highlands & Islands Enterprise in Scotland.

The IP Audit Plus scheme provides grants of up to £2,500, with a contribution of £500 from the grant recipient, to subsidise an IP audit carried out by an IP expert chosen by the company.

Here at Inngot we have delivered numerous IP audits under the IP Audit Plus scheme, helping SMEs understand the extent, nature and value of their IP and wider intangible assets, and ways they can protect, develop, and manage these assets for business growth. Feedback from our clients highlights our practical, tailored, objective and factual advice.

The IP Access scheme offers a grant of a further £5,000 to help implement the recommendations of an earlier IP audit report.

IP Access funds can be used to cover the cost of services related to:

• The management of IP assets

• The commercialisation of IP, such as licensing and franchising agreements

• IP insurance

• IP valuation

• Tax relief advice

• Professional fees for IP services in the UK and abroad, including patent, trade mark and registered design searching and the preparation of patent, trade mark and registered design applications - but not for the actual costs of IP filing fees.

Inngot has considerable experience of helping companies access IP grants and delivering subsequent IP audits, IP and tech evaluations and valuations and strategic IP management. While we don’t register rights, we do provide an objective, well-informed view on the return on investment your assets are generating, and how best to safeguard and maximise it – and we can offer an unbiased view on the need for registering IP rights, signposting you to relevant professional IP drafting and filing help using our extensive network of contacts.

If you want to know more about how IP and intangible assets can be used to support your business growth, then contact Dr Alison Orr – Alison@inngot.com.