Financial Assistance – overseas IP filings

It seems that all everyone is talking about is the doom and gloom of the financial economic crisis. Well, here may be some welcome news to those businesses that may be eligible for the Australian Government’s Export Market Development Grant (EMDG) scheme.

The EMDG scheme provides financial assistance to certain Australian businesses who are entering or consolidating export markets. The assistance covers “specific export promotional activities” but the definition of this is quite broad, meaning that businesses can obtain assistance for the export of intellectual property and know-how outside Australia.

Eligibility

To be eligible, a business must have:

• income of not more than $50 million in the grant year
• incurred at least $10,000 of eligible export expenses under the scheme (first-time applicants can combine two years expenses)
• principal status for the export business

The EMDG scheme reimburses up to 50 per cent of expenses incurred on eligible export promotion activities, above a $10,000 threshold and provides up to eight grants to each eligible applicant.

What can you claim?*

You may claim for expenditure on export promotional activities undertaken during the financial year including:

1. the portion of the fee or expense paid to your overseas representative that relates to promotion of your Australian products;
2. the cost of engaging (an arms length) marketing consultant;
3. the cost of travel during the marketing visit;
4. the costs of communications to promote your product such as fax, emails, phone expenses;
5. the cost of providing free samples of the product;
6. the cost of participating in an international trade fair, seminar, in-store promotion, international forum, private exhibition or similar activity;
7. external costs of promotional material such as brochures, videos, DVDs, advertising and website development;
8. the cost of bringing potential buyers who are non-residents to Australia for an approved export promotion purpose;
9. payments made to patent and trademark attorneys, for the registration of intellectual property for countries other than Australia or New Zealand; and/or
10. the cost of insurance premiums paid for protection against possible infringement, in countries outside Australia.

*Note that certain conditions apply including maximum amounts. Also, you must have:

• spent the funds; and
• provide evidence of the expense (in the way of a tax invoice/bank statement) and of what it was incurred for

Applications for the 2008-09 grant year opened on 1 July 2009.