WIPANO

WIPANO stands for knowledge and technology transfer through patents and standards. The programme comes from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and supports the commercial exploitation of innovative ideas with a grant. The current directive has applied since 1 January 2024 and runs until 31 December 2027. You can therefore plan several years ahead.

Unlike many funding programmes, WIPANO does not finance the research itself but its exploitation. It funds the filing of intellectual property rights and active involvement in standards. Hardly any other programme covers this second route.

What stands out is standardisation as a way into the market. Anyone contributing to a standard brings their own solution to where the rules of the sector are made and reaches customers faster. Up to €200,000 per consortium partner is available for such knowledge transfer projects.

Commercial businesses are eligible to apply. In patenting they are the main target group. In the standardisation priority a size limit is added: up to 1,000 employees and a maximum of €100 million annual turnover. Your company must also be permitted to accept de minimis aid there, that is, small amounts of state aid with their own ceiling.

For the standardisation and knowledge transfer priorities you need a registered office, business premises or a branch in Germany. In knowledge transfer, non-profit companies and associations are eligible too, as are standard-setting institutions and their committees, state and state-recognised universities and publicly core-funded research institutions.

Excluded there is anyone who has actively worked in national, European or international standardisation bodies in the three years before the application. You can answer this one question yourself before you put work into an application.

The route from result to exploitation is funded. In patenting, WIPANO covers the costs of the filing procedure: the preparation of the filing by a patent attorney, the official fees and the translation and validation of the intellectual property right.

Watch the sequence here. Your application must be approved before you file the intellectual property right. There is no funding for a filing that has already been submitted. Retrospective applications are ruled out.

In the standardisation priority, WIPANO funds standardisation projects by companies with up to €45,000. Knowledge transfer projects bring several partners together and carry research findings into the market through standards. Up to €200,000 per consortium partner is possible here.

You receive a grant that you do not repay. How high it is depends on the funding priority under which you apply.

For patenting costs, 50% of the eligible costs is covered. A maximum amount per module is added: up to €10,000 in module 1 of patenting and up to €6,000 in module 2. Standardisation projects by companies are funded with up to €45,000. In knowledge transfer projects, each consortium partner receives up to €200,000. These maximum amounts apply per project.

The grant reduces your costs directly. In a patenting project you bear only half of the eligible filing costs yourself; the other half comes from the funding.