SMEs - protect and exploit your IP by Baroness Wilcox, IP Minister on 02-Apr-2011

T

he Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published research to show that small businesses need to do more to protect and exploit their innovations.

"Innovation is the backbone of our economy and it’s encouraging that many businesses know the importance of protecting and exploiting their ideas," said Baroness Wilcox, Intellectual Property Minister. "However it’s clear that many smaller companies aren’t aware of how to make the most of their intellectual property."

"As part of the Government’s commitment to helping small businesses, the IPO offers a range of information and services to help companies identify and benefit from their inventions and designs."

The ‘Intellectual Property Awareness Survey of Business’ has shown that only 15 percent of small companies have ever sought advice on safeguarding their ideas. Only 11 percent of firms overall assign responsibility for managing intellectual property (IP) rights. This is compared to 43 per cent of larger companies, meaning that smaller enterprises risk missing out on valuable income from their creativity.

Services offered by the Intellectual Property Office include:

• A free online IP Healthcheck tool to help businesses understand different areas of IP.
• Workshops delivered throughout the UK to teach business advisors about IP.
• An IP Master Class course in partnership with Coventry University and the British Library.
• Free regional IP awareness seminars for businesses.
• Free guidance documents on a range of IP topics, from outlining the basics to country-specific IP guides for UK exporters to Brazil, China, Korea, India and Vietnam to help British companies in the major markets around the world.

This is the second awareness survey commissioned by the IPO. It involved 20,000 businesses of all sizes and from all industry sectors across the UK and aimed to find out their level of awareness about intellectual property including trade marks, patents, copyright and designs.

For more information:
www.ipo.gov.uk/whyuse/business.htm

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