As a company grows, so too does the number of considerations that need to be taken into account. Perhaps you are looking to take the business in a new direction and need help investigating the landscape before making a large investment.
Alternatively, you may have spent years building up a large portfolio of IP rights and want to take a step back and assess whether there are areas of the portfolio that need strengthening through new filings, or that are no longer relevant to your business objectives and so can be cut back so that the budget can be re-invested wisely.
We can also help with analytical insights and valuations. Whether you are interested in gathering intelligence on competitors and their IP, or whether you would like to get an evaluation of your portfolio’s current value for a shareholder report, we can help you.
We understand that these types of projects can be large undertakings, and so diverting in-house resources to these activities is not always feasible. We can put together a team with the right experience and skills to carry these out for you.
Whether you are a Pre-Seed or Series A start-up or an established SME, it is critically important that small businesses have plans in place to safeguard their IP and to assess the potential impact of existing third party IP rights. It is never too early to put these plans in place, and the risks from not having given proper consideration to IP can be high. We can work with you to formulate your IP strategy and to make sure you have a good handle on IP issues relevant to your business.
We know that investors will almost inevitably want an overview of your current IP situation, what rights you have, and what your plans are for deriving value and protecting your innovations, both those that are already developed and those that are in the development pipeline.
We appreciate that the world of IP is complex, and is often seen as impenetrable to start-ups that are running with lean-yet-agile business models.
At Dehns, we have worked with a huge number of start-ups, and have helped them grow and flourish, safe in the knowledge that one of their most important assets is fully protected.
The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) launched a new financial support scheme for SMEs in July 2024 – known as IP Advance, a development of their previous IP Audit Scheme.
The current pilot scheme allows UK businesses that meet certain criteria to access two types of funding – “IP Audit” which provides part-funding towards the cost of an audit of their IP position and “IP Access” which provides a contribution towards advice from an IP professional to progress their IP strategy or implement advice from their IP audit.
Under this scheme, funding of £2250 (including VAT) is available towards the cost of an audit.
Separately, a contribution of £2250 (including VAT) is available towards the cost of professional advice as part of the “IP Access” support. Businesses can apply for one or both of these levels of support – it’s not a requirement to receive IP Audit funding in order to receive the IP Access funding.