Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will be able to win a free legal consultation over their intellectual property assets as part of a campaign designed to raise awareness about the importance of commercial know-how.
The push is being backed by the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents and the Institute of Trademark Attorneys, along with the Patent Office and the free advice will be available to 200 small companies.
Lord Sainsbury, minister for science and innovation, said that the aim was "to ensure that more SMEs understand the pitfalls of not paying attention to intellectual property and the financial opportunities of exploiting their creativity and ideas".
There are long-standing concerns about the failure of SMEs to protect their intellectual property rights adequately - although many companies counter that, because of the high costs of litigation, they would be unable to enforce such rights anyway.
Source: Financial Times
