The EU's SME Fund has run out of trade mark money. Patents are still open
The EUIPO has closed its two most popular vouchers — IP Scan, and trade marks and designs — because the money ran out. Patents and plant varieties still take applications until 4 December, or until they go the same way.
Small firms put off registering a trade mark for the same reason every time: it looks like something you do once you already have money. The European scheme built to undo that calculation has just closed that particular door.
The EU SME Fund, the grant scheme the EUIPO runs for small and medium businesses, has stopped taking applications for IP Scan and for trade marks and designs — its two most popular vouchers — because the money set aside for each of them has been fully allocated. The call opened on 2 February with a 4 December deadline. Two of its four strands did not make it that far — including the percentages and caps we set out in July, when all of them were still available.
What is still open
Patents and plant varieties. Both still accept applications until 4 December, or until they run dry the same way. The patent voucher covers national filings at a member state office up to €1,000 and European patents filed at the EPO up to €2,500. Plant varieties matter to more Portuguese agricultural businesses than the phrase suggests.
There is also a separate voucher for craft and industrial geographical indications, reimbursing half of eligible costs up to €2,000.
IAPMEI keeps the Portuguese-language guidance, and INPI is the national contact point for confirming procedures and fees.
Who should be looking at this now
Anyone with a patentable product, recipe or process, particularly if a filing is already being prepared for next year. Waiting has stopped being free: the money goes in order of arrival, and this year has just shown what that looks like.
If you wanted the trade mark subsidy, the honest answer is that it is gone. Registering still makes sense at full price — a mark registered only in Portugal protects nothing in Spain, and companies usually find that out on their first contract abroad. The bill is simply no longer shared.
The lesson is in the calendar
The fund runs every year, and the pattern worth carrying into the next round is this one: the popular strands closed months before the advertised deadline. Anyone who waits for the deadline arrives late.
It is also not the only money on the table this month. The €182.5 million Productive Innovation call runs to 30 September, and the two fit together: a company financing an innovative project usually has something that ought to be registered in its own name before that project reaches the market.
Image: Kristof Roomp / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
