Thousands of companies across the EU have benefited from SME Fund support for Industrial Property protection

In the digital age, Industrial Property (IP) protection is a necessity, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. The SME Fund was born in 2022 with the purpose of providing financial support to SMEs in the European Union (EU) in the protection of their Intellectual and Industrial Property rights. It is a program financed by the European Commission and managed by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), which subsidizes the payment of fees for SMEs wishing to register their IP assets, both at national and European level.

This initiative is particularly relevant in a country like Spain, whose business fabric is mainly made up of SMEs. In fact, Spain is the country with the largest number of small and medium-sized enterprises in the EU (3.5 million), in addition to approximately 3.5 million self-employed people who also benefit from this aid.

Since the start of the program in 2022, some 90,000 applications have been submitted in the EU, of which 13,600, around 15% of the total, originate in Spain. This means that in our country some 6.6 million euros have been reimbursed out of the 40.6 million that this program has distributed throughout the Union. So much so that Spain has occupied from the beginning the first position of applications to the SME Fund in the whole European Union, with a total of 3,623 applications in 2022, 5,038 in 2023 and 4,926 in 2024 for the different Bonds that have been available.

Since its origin and over time, the different aid modalities have been extended until the coexistence of the four aid vouchers that have been available for SMEs in all EU countries during 2024:

Voucher 1: for IP Scan
Voucher 2: for trademarks and designs
Voucher 3: for patents
Voucher 4: for plant varieties

The scope and details of similar initiatives that will be developed throughout 2025 and that are so important for Spain, given the configuration of the business fabric of our country, will be announced soon.

More information

Fondo de ayudas SME Fund - Portal OEPM