IP plays a crucial role in the development of innovative products and technologies. To stimulate companies with an active innovation policy, many subsidies and funding opportunities have been created, such as Horizon Europe, the SME Fund, Eurostars, the Innovatiebox, the RVO scheme Innovatiekrediet, KIEM and SBIR innovatie in opdracht. Below is a brief introduction.

The European Horizon Europe subsidy program focuses on promoting cooperation between companies and research institutions. With the SME Fund, the European Commission provides SMEs in the EU with grants for IP activities. The European Eurostars subsidy program is designed to shorten the time-to-market of new technologies and reduce technical risks, allowing small businesses to develop and grow faster.

The Innovatiebox rewards companies in the Netherlands for their innovative activities with a lower profit tax. With the RVO scheme Innovatiekrediet, companies can apply for an attractive loan for a specific development project with substantial technical risks and excellent market prospects. With the scheme KIEM (Knowledge Innovation Mapping), consortia of researchers and public and private partners seek new partnerships for sectors of the creative industry. Finally, there is SBIR innovatie in opdracht (Small Business Innovation Research), a competition that challenges entrepreneurs to come up with innovations to solve social issues.

Want to know which subsidy your company may be eligible for? If so, please contact Huub Maas.

The Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office issued a ruling on "plausibility" on March 23. Peter de Lange, patent attorney at V.O.: "For practice, this is an important ruling. The Enlarged Board has now confirmed that there is indeed a threshold, with the criterion being whether the person skilled in the art can infer the surprising advantages of the invention from the technical teachings of the patent application. The Board acknowledges that this is an abstract criterion. V.O.'s patent attorneys can advise with their technical expertise what is sufficient for a specific invention."

V.O. is constantly looking for suitable candidates to train as patent attorneys. With the recruitment campaign LOVE SCIENCE, THINK BUSINESS that can be seen on Instagram and LinkedIn, we entice students and recent graduates to visit our special campaign website. Here they get insight into the profession, the training program and trainees tell about their experiences at V.O. In the video "A day in the life of Tamara, Teun, Sjoerd and Matthijs" our colleagues take the viewer through their work and visit their clients.

As in past years, this year V.O. also supports the innovation competition that our country's four universities of technology enter into among themselves and with each other. Thus, the Eindhoven University of Technology organizes the TU/e Contest, Wageningen University & Research the WUR Challenge, University of Twente the UT Challenge and the Delft University of Technology the TU Delft Impact Contest. Recently, Erasmus University also joined in with the Erasmus University Challenge. V.O. supports student teams who have questions about trademarks and the protection of their technical innovations. In doing so, V.O. contributes to awareness of the importance of IP and introduces students to the profession of patent attorney. Partner Bart Jan Niestadt, himself an Eindhoven University of Technology graduate at the time, puts it this way: "In my studies, IP was sparsely discussed in certain theoretical subjects. Now, also through these competitions, students are becoming aware that the technical knowledge behind innovations can represent great value."