News

The Department of the Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property hereby announces that the European Union Intellectual Property Office’s and European Committee’s “Ideas Powered for Business” SME Fund grant scheme, which provides financial support to small and medium-sized enterprises in the form of partial fee reimbursement for the protection of Intellectual Property, is once again available to the public from 03/02/2025 to 05/12/2025.

The 2025 grant program will subsidize the following Intellectual Property services:

• Grant for IP Scan and IP Scan Enforcement pre-diagnostic services at a rate of 90%.
• Grant for national and European trademark application fees at a rate of 75%.
• Grant for national and European industrial design application, publication, and deferred publication fees at a rate of 75%.
• Grant for basic application fees, designation fees of contracting parties, and subsequent designation fees for trademark registrations in non-EU and EU countries at a rate of 50%. Handling fees for applications within EU payable to the office of origin are excluded.
• Grant for filing fees, search and examination fees, grant and publication fees for national patent applications, as well as for filing and search report fees for European patents at a rate of 75%.
• Grant for legal costs for drafting and filing new European patent applications at a rate of 50% (valid only if drafted and filed by a patent representative approved by the EPO).
• Grant for online filing and examination fees for applications for plant variety protection with the Community Plan Variety Office (CPVO) at a rate of 75%.

The main features of the scheme are as follows:

• The grant is awarded in the form of vouchers as follows:
  • Voucher No.1 for pre-diagnostic service grants (IP Scan and IP Scan Enforcement) with a maximum reimbursement amount of €810.
  • Voucher No.2 for trademark and industrial design registration application fee grants with a maximum reimbursement amount of €700.
  • Voucher No.3 for national and European patent registration application fee grants with a maximum reimbursement amount of €1,000 each and legal fee grants with a maximum reimbursement amount of €1,500.
  • Voucher No.4 for fees related to the protection of plant varieties through CVPO with a maximum reimbursement amount of €1,500.
• Small and medium-sized enterprises can apply for each voucher separately or in combination.
• The grant application for each abovementioned voucher must necessarily precede the filing of the Intellectual Property registration application or the implementation of the pre-diagnostic service.
• The approval or rejection decision will be sent via email to the SME within 15 working days from the submission of the grant application.
• The SMEs will have a time period of 1 month, with an extension option of up to 2 months, to activate grant vouchers 2, 3, and 4 by filing the first application for Trademark, Industrial Design, and/or Patent registration or by implementing IP Scan and IP Scan Enforcement services. Voucher 1 will have a non-extendable 6-month activation period.
• After the activation of vouchers 2, 3, and 4, the SME will have up to 6 months to fully utilize the maximum grant amount with additional Intellectual Property applications. Voucher 1 will be consumed during the activation period, with no further implementation period.
• The grant will be paid by bank transfer to the SME’s bank account within 30 days of the final submission.

Grant applications will be submitted via the European Union Intellectual Property Office at the following link: https://www.euipo.europa.eu/en/sme-corner/sme-fund/2025.

For more information about the “Ideas Powered for Business” SME Fund grant scheme, the public can contact the Officer of the Department of the Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property, Pandelis Pandeli, at telephone number 22404357 or via email at ppandeli@drcor.meci.gov.cy.