The European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME represents the confederation of voluntarily associated SMEs from all sectors towards the European institutions, giving voice to more than 2.1 million companies employing over 20 million people.

As a result of this agreement, this organisation will be able to better assist SMEs in protecting their innovation through IP in a competitive and rapidly changing global marketplace.

The EUIPO is the European agency responsible for managing the EU trade mark and the registered Community design, which are valid in all EU Member States.

For the EUIPO, this agreement will allow direct access to the European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME members to promote initiatives such as the recently launched SME Fund 2022 and free personalised intellectual property advice.

As part of their efforts to support SMEs, the European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME and the EUIPO plan to hold joint events and webinars to disseminate information and build knowledge on IP. The collaboration also extends to sharing information about their respective services with users and leveraging social media to reach SMEs.

Andrea Di Carlo, Deputy Executive Director, EUIPO (left) and Maurizio Casasco, President of European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME (right)

'It is a pleasure for us to welcome the European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME to the Ideas Powered for business network. We are pleased to see the network growing, together we can achieve even greater success in disseminating information that will benefit European SMEs in their quest to be more competitive in this fast-paced and challenging environment.'

Andrea Di Carlo, Deputy Executive Director, EUIPO

'We are delighted to have signed a cooperation agreement with EUIPO. SMEs play a critical role in today’s economy and can use intellectual property rights to build more substantial, more competitive and resilient businesses. Hence, the protection of intellectual property is a significant priority for SMEs. However, they often have fewer tools and resources to defend themselves from misuse and thefts of their IPs and spurious claims from patent trolls.

We look forward to providing knowledge, tools and expertise to small and medium-sized companies across Europe thanks to this collaboration.'

Maurizio Casasco, President of European Entrepreneurs CEA-PME