Brussels, June 28, 2017 – Fractus, together with Fraunhofer Institute, France Brevets and a group of CEOs representing Europe’s most innovation-intensive small and medium sized enterprises (IP Europe SMEs), delivered yesterday an SME Manifesto on “Driving growth for European Innovators” to senior officials from the European Commission.
The SME Manifesto includes measures to help Europe drive growth and create high-value jobs in 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution. The manifesto calls for:
- Ensuring fair access to justice
European Union institutions and their Member States need to promote and ensure a fair, fit-for-purpose legal system so that SMEs can protect their hard-won inventions and cost effectively challenge those who infringe their patents and profit from their inventions, notably large companies, without taking a license. “If a company can’t afford to enforce its patents, its intellectual property rights become meaningless. If we are serious about supporting European SMEs we have to ensure that they have real access to justice” said Rubén Bonet, CEO of Fractus and SMEs Chair of IP Europe.Better financing and loan guarantees for IPR-Intensive innovators.
- Better financing and loan guarantees for Intellectual Property intensive companies can also boost R&D
The SME Manifesto calls for tax credits incentives for every euro invested in R&D by innovative SMEs. Rubén Bonet – said: “When FRACTUS started, it was only two men in a garage, but we recognised the importance of patents. This allowed us to attract more than €20 million in venture capital funding, and more than $100m in licensing revenues. SMEs need to value and understand that the European patent system can be a strategic tool for its business success, and that is what the SME manifesto hopes to address.”
- Innovation incentives: R&D tax credits
The EU needs to promote innovation incentives and R&D tax credits best practices: meaningful financial incentives focused on Research & Development have to be available for smaller entities and must provide an equivalent tax break for every euro invested in R&D.
About Fractus
Fractus is an early pioneer in developing internal antennas for smartphones, tablets and other wireless Internet of Things devices and holds an intellectual property rights portfolio of more than 30 inventions protected through over 120 patents and patent applications in the United States, Europe and Asia. Among the numerous awards and honours the company has received for its innovative work, Fractus was named a 2005 Davos World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and one of Red Herring’s top innovative companies for 2006. It also won the 2004 Frost & Sullivan Award for technological innovation and the 2010 National Communication Award of the Catalan Government in the telecommunications category. A team of Fractus inventors was finalist for the EPO European Inventor Award 2014. On November 2015, Fractus was awarded Academiae Dilecta by the Spanish Royal Engineering Academy and on April 2017 received the “European Inspiring Company Award” by the London Stock Exchange and the Elite Group. For further information, visit www.fractus.com
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