On February 3, the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) opened the application period for the SME Fund 2025, aiming to finance provision of required services IP protection, covering all types of assets: trademarks, designs, patents and plant varieties.

Launched in 2021, only SMEs established in the European Union, including Ukraine, are eligible. This fund is of great interest due to the simplicity of its application process, fast resolution period (normally within 15 days) and straight-forward implementation and payment methods.

The SME Fund is divided into 4 types of vouchers, depending on the services required. However, Spanish SMEs can only apply to vouchers V2 (trademarks or designs protection), V3 (patenting) and V4 (plant varieties protection), as the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office does not provide the IP Scanning service that is financed by the V1 voucher.

The process of obtaining the vouchers is very simple, as securing the credit is as simple as submitting the corresponding application on the EUIPO website, wait for the approval of the voucher and activate it in due time. By “activation” the EUIPO means the initiation of the process for carrying out at least one IP activity (i.e. paying the taxes) and submitting a request for reimbursement of fees. Once the voucher has been activated, the implementation can continue up to a maximum of 6 months from the notification of the credit reserve. Activation of the voucher guarantees the credit granted to the applicant and assures EUIPO that the credit will be used.

Maximum values, percentage of financing over the total expense, as well as the activation and implementation periods, are shown in the following image:

The SME 2025 fund, although it seems to be limited in terms of amounts, allows for repetition of applications, which increases the potential final ammount received by a single applicant. However, some particularities must be taken into account:

1.- The same applicant can apply for a V2 voucher and use it for more than one trademark. The total amount for all trademarks must not exceed the maximum amount of €700.

2.- Multiple V3 vouchers, up to a total of 3,500€, may be issued to the same applicant if the are aplicable to different services (i.e. prior art search, European patent search and taxes and legal fees for drafting the patent application). It should only be noted that the prior art search service must be provided by the Patent and Trademark Office of an EU Member State or by the Visegrad Institute, while the patent services themselves may be provided by any representative authorized by the EPO (see list)

3.- More than one voucher can be requested to obtain patents if the protection is to cover different areas (national and European); however, the SME Fund applications should be submitted in different weeks.

Vouchers will be approved in weekly batches. Note that a first-in-first-serve approach will be used until funds are exhausted, so, if you are interested, it is important not to wait too long to decide whether to apply.

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