Government Helps Export Businesses Fund Creation of IP Assets

10 Nov 09

Changes to the Export Market Development Grants (EDMG) scheme mean up to 50% reimbursement of costs for eligible businesses registering intellectual property overseas.

IP assets and reimbursement via the EDMG scheme

There is a growing appreciation of the importance of intellectual property protection to all businesses big and small.  Not only does it help a business establish a monopoly right in a given market to compensate for costly development and reward innovation, it also creates balance sheet recordable assets which can add real value to a business. 

As many would be aware, protecting intellectual property via registered rights such as patents, trade marks and registered designs, can be relatively expensive, particularly when seeking to register rights in foreign countries.  However, recent changes in the EMDG scheme have made this substantially more affordable for eligible businesses, by providing grants to reimburse up to 50% of overseas intellectual property legal and registration fees .

Furthermore, applications made after 1 July 09 may claim expenses from the 08/09 year, or for first time applicants, from 1 July, 2007.

Eligibility

Australian entities carrying on business in Australia may be eligible to claim under the EMDG scheme for expenses incurred in the promotion of products for export if they:

• have an annual income of not more than $50 million during 2008-2009;
• spend at least $10,000 on eligible export promotion activities during 2007-2009; and
• are the principal exporter, rather than the agent, of the product being promoted.

Activities

Nine categories of promotional activities can be claimed. They include costs associated with:

• overseas representation;
• engagement of marketing consultants for foreign markets;
• foreign marketing visits;
• communication expenses;
• promotional literature & advertising including free samples;
• trade fairs, seminars, in-store promotions;
• overseas buyer visits; and
• most recently, registration and/or insurance of intellectual property

What IP expenses can be claimed?

Intellectual property under the scheme is taken to include not only patents, designs and trade marks but also plant breeders rights, circuit layouts, copyright and even trade secrets.

The intellectual property must have resulted, to a substantial extent, from research or work performed in Australia. For rights relating to trade marks, the trade mark must have been first used in Australia, or increased in significance or value because of its use in Australia.

Claimable expenses include:

• Payments made to lawyers and patent and trade mark attorneys, for the purpose of pursuing registration of IP rights.outside of Australia or New Zealand.
• Expenses relating to insurance costs for protection against possible infringement of eligible intellectual property.

It should be noted that as with all the other categories of expenses listed above, all claimable IP payments must be in relation to increasing export sales of the relevant product or service and there are certain exclusions. However, if the criteria are met, the potential reimbursement could be very significant.

Caroline Bommer – Partner Shelston IP  (Patent Attorney and CPEng )

Subscribe free-of-charge to the Advanced Manufacturing Bulletin and be kept informed about manufacturing industry news and new manufacturing technology.