Supports projects intended to foster investment in dynamic competitiveness factors associated to technological innovation, design and distinctive signs of products and services (trademarks), and using the Industrial Property System and the Licensing System for the Introduction of New Drugs in the Market (AIM).

Goals 

• To foster inventive activities, creativity and innovation by enterprises, entrepreneurs, inventors and designers independents, as well as by organisations developing research activities and using the Industrial Property System;
• To promote the granting of licences for the introduction in foreign markets of drugs created and developed in Portugal.

Beneficiaries

Enterprises, inventors, independent designers, entrepreneurs at a pre-entrepreneurial stage and institutions developing research tasks within the scope of the activities covered by this incentive scheme.

Activity  Sectors

Industry, energy, building industry, tourism, commerce and services, with the following EAC:

Activity Sectors	Eligible EAC
Projects of Industrial Property
Industry	10 a 37
Energy	40 e 41
Building Industry	45
Commerce	50 a 52
Tourism	551, 552, 553, 554, 633, 711, 9232, 9233, 9234, 9261, 9262, 9272, 93041 e 93042
Services	555, 631, 632, 634, 72, 73, 90, 9211
Projects for AIM Requests
Pharmaceutical Industry	2442

Type of Projects

• National requests for patents, utility models and models and plans;
• Requests for models or European plans;
• Requests for patents, utility models and plans or models in foreign countries;
• European and international requests for patents and utility models;
• Trademark registration requests, when intend for signalling the products subject to patent, model or plan, financed via SIUPI or already protected;
• Maintenance of patents, utility models, models or industrial plans and models and plans, granted less than two years before;
• Design, study and execution of prototypes or experimental facilities, supported by a patent owned by the promoter or by a patent request;
• Submission of AIM requests in foreign countries;
• Submission of AIM requests through a centralised Community procedure;
• Submission of AIM requests through a de-centralised Community procedure.

Eligibility Requirements

For the Promoter

• To be legally established and registered;
• To fulfil the legal conditions required to carry out business activity, namely having been granted the necessary licenses;
• To have fulfilled all obligations related to taxes and social security, and towards the paying agency responsible for the incentive;
• To have an organised accounting system, according to the national accounting system;
• To have net own capital by the end of the year preceding the year of the application;
• To appoint a project leader who carries out the task until the conclusion of the project;
• To be the legal holder of the patent, utility model, model, plan or trademark and, if applicable, to have the right to be protected under the Industrial Property System;
• To be legally entitled to invoke the priority of an earlier request, or to presume the protection on the basis of the result of the research report on the state of the art in the case of protection request;
• To be the holder of the protected right, in cases of safeguarding of industrial property rights;
• To be the holder of a protected or a would-be protected right – provided that he/she has already made a request that fulfils the legal protection requirements – for prototypes or experimental facilities;
• To have the formal authorization of all other interested parties to submit the application and take on the corresponding responsibilities, in the event of shared rights to the protection or safeguarding request;
• To have a balanced economic and financial situation, in the case of projects for AIM requests.

• To correspond to an eligible minimum expense of € 2.500;
• To exclude all expenses made before the application date, with the exception of expenses relating to research on the state of the art, technical and economic feasibility studies, and national, European, Community and international protection requests;
• To request support for one property right only, with the exception of those intended to supplement the protection ensured by the industrial property right upon which the application is based;
• To prove having ensured the necessary financing sources;
• To fulfil the legal requirements for protection, in the case of protection rights within the industrial property system;
• To include all the necessary expenses for obtaining the corresponding rights, in the case of projects for protection requests within the industrial property system;
• To be included in the medium term strategy of the promoter, endorsing the options made in terms of relevant products/markets, in the case of projects for AIM requests;
• To concern medicaments with a single dominant active substance, in the case of projects for AIM requests.

Eligible Expenses

• Taxes related to patent, utility models and plan requests;
• Withholding taxes related to patents, utility models and industrial models and plans;
• Industrial propriety consultancy fees;
• Expenses related to the development of prototypes and to the construction of experimental facilities:
  • Adaptation of buildings and facilities;
  • Purchase and transport of equipment;
  • Purchase of software;
  • Raw materials;
  • Components;
  • Tools;
  • Technical and scientific assistance;
• Expenses related to "state of the art" and historical research related to the areas subject to protection;
• Development of technical and economic viability studies;
• Expenses related to support to use the and commercialisation of inventions or protected intellectual creations:
  • Travelling allowances;
  • Participation in events;
  • Demonstration actions;
  • Travelling expenses of possible users;
    o Informative and advertising equipment and materials;
    o Dissemination;
    o Use of data bases;
• Lab tests;
• Taxes related to the AIM request stage;
• External technical assistance;
• Preparation fees of applications;
• VAT may be deduced, whenever the promoter is the passive subject of this tax and may request the deduction.

Non-Eligible Expenses

• Expenses justified by documents that do not, in form or in content, conform to the law;
• In the case of prototypes and experimental facilities construction:
  • Purchasing of buildings;
  • Subletting rights and space using rights;
  • Purchasing of furniture and equipment not directly related to the project's development;
  • Purchasing of motor vehicles;
  • Purchasing of Second-hand goods;
  • Promoter's structure and operational costs.

Selection Criteria

• Submission of requests for patents, utility models and drawings, or for international drawings and models – projects’ rationale according to a technical and economic feasibility perspective, and their compliance with the legal protection requirements, will be considered;
• Submission of requests for trademark registration – their materialisation shall justify, on a commercial level, their matching with other industrial property rights;
• Upholding of patents, utility models, industrial models and designs and drawings – their materialisation shall be grounded on the prospects of industrialisation of the corresponding industrial property right, as well as on the reasonability of the time period requested to that effect;
• Collection of information, feasibility studies and support to the use and commercialisation of invents and creations – their materialisation shall be considered as an essential element for the development of the process for the protection of the industrial property model and its commercial success;
• Design, analysis and manufacturing of prototypes or experimental installations, supported by a patent owned by the promoter, or by an application for a patent - their materialisation shall be considered as an essential element for the development of the process for the protection of the industrial property model and its commercial success, and shall also demonstrate a clear application feasibility and a recognised industrial or economic need;
• AIM requests – the way the projects are based on a market perspective will be considered.

Incentive

Non-refundable incentive. The incentive rates to be applied to the eligible expenses are:

• 40% - for enterprises and other organisations having investment projects in the LVT region;
• 45% - for enterprises and other organisations having investment projects in other regions; 
• 70% for inventors, independent designers and entrepreneurs at a pre-entrepreneurial stage; 
• 75% for technological infrastructures and/or for institutions developing research work.

Apart from specific limits for each type of expense, the incentives to be granted to companies are covered by the de minimis regime. Therefore, they shall not exceed the total of €100.000 over a three-year period, starting on the date of approval of the first incentive.

Submission of Applications

Applications shall be submitted through the appropriate form and delivered at one of the Investors Office of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Innovation.

Applications to this Measure are now suspended (Ministerial Order no. 19624-B/2006, of 25 September). 

Body  in Charge

INPI - National Institute for Industrial Propriety

Geographical Area

Mainland Portugal and the Autonomous Regions.

 This information does not dispense with consulting the legislation.

Updated on November 2006.