The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is offering free Intellectual Property (IP) health checks worth £3,000 to high-growth UK small and medium businesses on the Growth Accelerator programme.
These IP health checks give you an opportunity to review your company’s intellectual assets with an accredited IP professional. The health check assessment includes all types of intellectual property owned by the business such as patents, trademarks, design rights and copyright and makes recommendations on practical steps you can take towards gaining and maximising the value of these assets in your business.
This support will help an SME business to develop effective strategies to take new products or services to market and offer a means of increasing market place success. It is particularly relevant for those businesses where there is an existing IP portfolio of where significant IP assets are involved.
UK small businesses are notoriously poor in exploiting their IP compared to businesses in other EU countries and risk falling behind in the race for international competitiveness. Whilst we’re pretty good at coming up with new ideas, there’s nothing more frustrating than to discover your competition protecting the idea first – thus preventing you from commercially exploiting it!
