£3,000 on offer for Intellectual Property audit from the Technology Strategy Board

New opportunity available for TSB competition winners.

December 2011

UK companies can receive up to £3,000 funding towards a full ‘IP Audit’ as part of a new initiative from the government-funded Technology Strategy Board. Gill Jennings & Every, which took part in a pilot programme for the initiative last year, is ideally placed to help companies that win funding navigate the process.

The TSB is an industry-led organisation which aims to grow UK business by investing in new ideas, building networks and promoting the exchange of knowledge between industries and academia. As part of its work it identifies industrial areas where additional innovation is required and runs “competitions” for funded programmes. It is this competition programme that has been extended, with competition winners being offered IP Audit funding.

You can find out more about TSB competitions, including how to apply for funding here.

Audits provide advice and support towards gaining and maximising the value and help the business develop an IP strategy to take the project to market. Typically the work involves, a visit or meeting, and a tailored report setting out clear recommendations and actions setting out how best to extract value from existing IP and how to manage IP within the project.

The TSB sets out the requirements for audits it covers, which must include:

• Patents - identify pending applications, granted patents, potential patentable technology, potential patent infringements.
• Trade Marks - identify registered and unregistered trade marks, searching procedures prior to introduction of trade mark, possible infringement of third party rights.
• Designs - identify registered and unregistered rights, possible protection through Design rights and Community Design rights, possible infringement of third party rights.
• Copyright – identify copyright (databases, websites, marketing/promotional material, photography, film), ownership/assignment of copyright from creators, procedure for establishing date of creation, copyright indicators on protectable works, database rights.
• IP Management - to include confidentiality (or non-disclosure) agreements, trade secrets, technical know-how, employee agreements and dissemination of IP policy throughout the company, licensing, evaluating existing IP, IP policy including registration, renewal systems, monitoring/watching services and enforcement and international filing strategies.

The Board trialled the programme last year, and GJE attorneys Lucy Samuels, Mark Devaney and Jack Cundy were involved in the work.

To find out more about how GJE can help you with a TSB-funded IP audit, or to find out more about our general IP audit work contact Karen Connolly.