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By Amanda Foley and Rita Sau Ping Davies
WIPO’s World IP Day, which takes place on 26 April every year, is an event created in 2000 by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a UN agency, to highlight the role intellectual property (IP) plays within an organisation as well as the benefits that it can bring to society as a whole, provided that it has been identified, protected and managed successfully.
So next Monday, April 26th 2021, Inngot® will join the rest of the IP and business world in celebrating World Intellectual Property Day, the annual reminder to us all of the vital role that intellectual property plays in driving innovation.
And this year’s theme — IP & SMEs: Taking your ideas to market — focuses our attention on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the critical role that they play in driving the economy, a crucial consideration at any time, but perhaps more so in the current climate.
The UK definition of SME is a small or medium-sized business with fewer than 250 employees. The EU definition goes a step further; an SME is defined as having fewer than 250 employees, a turnover of less than €50 million, or a balance sheet totalling less than €43 million. And in the United States, SMEs are considered to include firms with fewer than 500 employees.
But wherever we are in the world, SMEs are all around us. They total close to 6 million (over 99% of all business) in the UK, according to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and around 400 million (around 95% of all businesses) on a global level, accounting for 60-70% of all employment.
As consumers, we benefit from the work undertaken by SMEs every day. They are responsible for our takeaway coffees and chicken bhunas; they have our newspapers ready for us each morning; they deliver us our late-night online purchases; and they help us out with day-to-day household repairs and maintenance.
They are the foundation of each and every national economy, and they inspire us to pursue our own creative ideas, raising the possibility that we will become the leading businesses of the future. What would we do without them?
Every SME started life as a kernel of an idea, an innovation that required ambition, determination and not a little bit of money to get it off the ground. And sadly, in some cases, even that isn’t enough. Something over 600,000 SMEs are started in the UK every year, but roughly 60% of these will fail within the first three years, most within the first 12 months.
Running an SME is inherently risky and consequently stressful in the extreme. As well as a solid, ground-breaking idea, a successful entrepreneur should also have access to a steady cashflow they can rely on, a comprehensive understanding of business and finance (or at least, access to support from others that do), robust communications and management skills, and the sheer will to bring their product or service to market.
Essentially, these awe-inspiring individuals must be able to juggle knives whilst riding a unicycle along a tight-rope stretched across alligator-infested waters.
So, it’s hardly surprising that huge numbers of SMEs fail, and there are various reasons why they may; running out of money is probably at the top of the list, because if you don’t have a bottomless pot of cash to tap into, securing financial support from investors or lenders can be particularly tricky for early-stage businesses. Inexperience in business management and poor planning are also common reasons. It’s difficult to follow the 6Ps principal — Product, Price, Promotion, Place, People, and Process, in case you don’t know them — if you’re not clear what you need to prepare for.
But proper understanding and management of intellectual property and intangible assets could help with each of these stumbling blocks.
Most entrepreneurs aren’t aware of the IP they hold (or at least, not all if it), let alone the value that it may embody and how it could be leveraged. So, perhaps the first step would be to consider if there are any registration processes that you could benefit from; could your innovation be protected by a patent or trade mark registration? This may involve doing a little online research and possibly contacting an intellectual property lawyer for some advice.
Once that point has been clarified, and any registration processes begun, the next step would be to develop a thorough understanding of all the other intangible assets that are applicable to an innovation and what it could all be worth.
It may surprise you to learn that your employment contracts, website text and supporting images, customer reviews and social media accounts can all be considered as valuable assets, and that a valuation of these could be used to inform finance applications, sales, or even licensing negotiations.
Inngot can help with that step. Our IP identification and valuation platform was designed so anyone can create an inventory of IP and intangible assets applicable to an innovation for free, using our Goldseam® tool. You can then take that inventory, add a few basic financial details from your accounts and business plans, and put them all into our Sollomon® valuation tool to get an indicative value for the innovation, from as little as £395 + VAT, all in as little as an hour from the comfort of your own laptop.
So, let this year’s World IP Day remind us all of the importance of SMEs and their IP and intangible assets and celebrate the remarkable entrepreneurs that make a success of it every day — and once you’ve picked up your lunch from the local deli and read through the newspaper you bought in the corner shop, let Inngot be another SME that makes your day just that little bit better!
About World IP Day and WIPO
WIPO chose 26 April for World IP Day because it was the date when the treaty establishing the organisation entered into force in 1970.
The theme for this year’s event is IP & SMEs: Taking your ideas to market. The day’s activities will focus on making SMEs aware that IP can be utilised to drive innovation, economic sustainability, and competitive advantages.
WIPO primarily deals with IP which can be legally protectable, such as patents, trade marks, copyright, industrial designs, trade secrets, Geographic Indicators and Plant Variety Rights, plus some others.
Are you an SME with any intellectual property or intangible assets such as trademarks, copyright, non-registered rights, know-how, patents, relationships etc. that could have value?
To celebrate World IP Day 2021 and its focus on SMEs, we are offering a 15% discount off our online valuation tools (Sollomon and Sollomon2) to all SMEs who contact us by 5pm on Friday 30th April 2021 . Call us on 0333 8008090 or email info@inngot.com quoting WIPD21 for your discount code.
Also , Inngot’s Dr Alison Orr (LinkedIn: DrAlisonOrr) will be one of the speakers at a lunchtime webinar celebrating World IP Day 2021, organised by Menai Science Parc – Parc Gwyddoniaeth Menai (Twitter: @M-SParc).
Alison will be speaking about the importance and value of IP and intangible assets and how they can be exploited to drive business growth.
The event is being chaired by IP, media and technology law counsel Jane Lambert, and other speakers include M-SParc-based BIC Innovation, Knox Commercial Solicitors talking about IP in joint ventures and IP Tax Solutions on R&D tax incentives tax breaks for new companies and their equity investors. They will be joined by representatives of the Welsh government and the UK Intellectual Property Office.
Registration details for the M-SParc webinar can be found here.
