Enterprise Europe Network intellectual property (IP) expert Marco Gorini highlights the services we offer ambitious businesses on the path to innovation and growth.
Protecting your Intellectual Property (IP) is far more than a simple legal issue. An EU-wide study has shown that small firms that own intellectual property rights have on average 32% higher revenue per employee than firms that do not. If you really want to focus on innovation and internationalisation to create value for your business, you can't do without an IP management strategy.
What IP rights and tools are the most suitable to create value with your innovation? How does this apply to the geographical, social, political, economic and legislative contexts of your specific market? An IP management strategy helps answer these questions.
Finding the right mix of IP tools and rights
The ability to manage IP and know-how is a key enabling factor for a solid innovation management capacity. For any business. It guarantees a successful exploitation of the innovations on the market and ensures greater effectiveness in anti-counterfeiting.
Patents are very important. But there are other tools that can support the internationalisation, collaboration and innovation parts of your strategy. Take a look at trademarks, designs, copyrights or trade secrets to name a few.
How can businesses navigate this complexity and understand what to do next?
An IPR Helpdesk at your service
IP management plays a strategic role in the competitiveness of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). This is why the European Commission established the European IPR Helpdesk.
The Helpdesk provides information and advice on IP management and IP Rights (IPR) free of charge. It works in close contact with the European Patent Office (EPO) and European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).
Get local and personalised intellectual property support
So how can your business take these services and build them into effective daily business practices? The answer is the Enterprise Europe Network and its IP ambassadors.
Our ambassadors are IP experts who combine the information services typical of the EU IPR Helpdesk with the advisory services of the Enterprise Europe Network on internationalisation, technology transfer, innovation and research.
What an IP ambassador can do for your business
Our 49 IP ambassadors from 27 EU countries guide entrepreneurs and researchers to:
- understand the role of IPR tools in articulating the value of their innovations
- improve business plans of businesses in startup and scale-up phases
- develop innovation management capacity and strategies
- protect their know-how in the case of partnerships for open innovation processes
- valorise know-how and technology through licensing and technology transfer agreements
- become more effective in anti-counterfeiting on international markets
- ease access to finance with private investors and financiers
How to get in touch
The list of Enterprise Europe Network IPR ambassadors is available on the website of the European IPR Helpdesk. You can use the map or the scroll the list to locate an expert in your country or region.
About the author
Marco Gorini is Head of Technology Transfer and Innovation services at Veneto Innovazione SpA, the in-house agency for innovation of the Veneto regional government and member of the Enterprise Europe Network. Marco has been working in the Enterprise Europe Network since 2008 and is one of the five IP ambassadors for Italy.