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EURADA attends the EUIPO annual event

Article written by Giacomo Frisanco – Communication, Policy and Membership Manager

Last September, EURADA was invited by EUIPO – the European Union Intellectual Property Office – to attend the second annual meeting of the Ideas Powered for Business Network in Alicante, Spain. The official programme foresaw a meeting of each of the 3 Working Groups (WGs) established by the partnership. EURADA is part of two working groups: Sustainability and Digitalisation WG, and Communication WG.

The Sustainability and Digitalisation WG prepared a catalogue with IP-related questions to be answered for startups. The WG expressed the need for EUIPO support and expertise in 2024 and aims to deliver an online IP essentials banner and leaflet based on EUIPO materials. The Communications WG is preparing guidelines on effective IP communication for EU SMEs. They will share this with the network and will start to work on a joint communication campaign. The third one, on Finance and IP, identified knowledge gaps, the need to build capacity, reuse material and find ways to reach SMEs. The WG will investigate the decision-making process of financial players and wishes to organise an event to talk with financial providers.

On Day 2, the network focuses on helping entrepreneurs understand the intangible asset that IP is and its added value for businesses. With the increase of single-person companies, the need to adopt IP strategies at different business development stages is more important than ever to help ensure these companies’ continuity.

During the first panel of the day, Innovation, IP and Deep Tech, panellists discussed funding for deep tech start-ups and the need for IP, while EISMEA presented Horizon Europe and some of EU’s key funding programmes for research and innovation. In particular, the need for deep tech skills matching was discussed and EIT presented the Deep Tech Talent Initiative funded by the European Commission.

The panellists proposed concrete actions for the network to stimulate EU innovation:

  • Act as a multiplier to share existing opportunities, stimulate interest and develop the knowledge of key investors and IP specialists.
  • Collaborate to develop online deep tech courses with IP content.
  • Work on coordinated initiatives.
  • Improve innovators’ education to exploit IP strategies.
  • Raise IP awareness among researchers to ease the lab-to-market transition.

In the framework of the second Panel, IP Serving the Transformation of the Economy, panellists spoke about the EU Commission’s efforts to tackle new trends in IP, EU legislative landscape highlights, challenges such as how to protect IP online environment, new technologies, sustainability, or SMEs in e-commerce and how IP can help them survive the digital transformation.

The importance of considering the whole IP journey, including infringement of IP rights and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) was also raised. Other topics brought up were IP’s role in the European Commission’s Green Deal and how IP can help direct investment to sectors such as climate technologies and how it is key to ensuring monopolistic rights not granted in sustainability.

Back in June 2021, EURADA and EUIPO signed a collaboration agreement to encourage activities and promote services that support small businesses. The agreement covers activities such as training in intellectual property, knowledge sharing, participation in events and awareness raising. Since the agreement was signed, two webinars for EURADA members to provide them with an overview of European activities related to IP for local SMEs were organised. Click here for more information. This positive collaboration is expected to last long in the future. The EUIPO team will participate in our AGORADA+ scheduled to take place in Krakow on 12 and 12 December 2023, while a third webinar for EURADA members is foreseen to be held online in Spring 2024.