We partnered with the Society for Chemical Industry (SCI) as part of our campaign to promote patenting to innovative UK SMEs, and published a report in support of their manifesto for an industrial science and innovation strategy.
The report, entitled Innovation and Patents in the United Kingdom, received coverage in The Times. President Matt Dixon was quoted, saying: “Only with businesses and government working together in close counsel will the UK avoid losing out on the incredible economic opportunity afforded by intellectual property generation and patent protection.”
One of Matt’s priorities at the start of his presidential term was to offer better support to innovative SMEs and to promote the benefits of patenting to them.
He identified a concerning trend of British businesses choosing not to file for patent protection in key overseas markets – this despite British manufacturing output having increased by 40% in the last two decades.
The report, which we published in August, explained this problem and proposed possible solutions to assist SMEs, such as subsidising a European Patent Office search for first filings (as happens in France).
We have collaborated with the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) to launch initiatives such as IP Advance, which provides IP support to SMEs. We have also introduced a new format to the CIPA Clinics to better serve the needs of small businesses.
Matt also authored a starter guide to patenting for SMEs yet to file a patent, the SME Patent Pack, which we published on this special SME campaign page.
We launched three case study videos highlighting the importance and benefit of patenting to cleantech and climate tech businsess and used these to promote the guide.
A successful social media advertising campaign targeted at innovative SMEs generated 2,000 downloads of the SME Patent Pack. The campaign also led to:
- A hundred-fold increase in the typical number of views of our case study videos on YouTube – 50k+ views within the first three weeks of the campaign
- A further 37.5k views of variants of the videos, with a call to action added to download our SME Patent Pack
- A further 25k views of clips from the videos used as YouTube adverts