Brevetti+ 2026: patent, design and trademark grants for SMEs

Last year the money lasted one afternoon. Brevetti+ opened at noon on 20 November 2025, and by six that evening enough applications had come in to use up all €20 million. Marchi+ and Disegni+ went the same way on their opening days in December. Brevetti+ 2026 has its budget again, and so do its two sister schemes. The calls that set the dates haven’t appeared.

Until they do, last year’s rules are the best map: here they are scheme by scheme, with the papers to prepare, the mistakes to avoid and the EU and US alternatives. New to public funding? Our map from zero to a first round shows where a grant, money you never pay back, fits among your options.

Is Brevetti+ 2026 open yet?

No. The legal basis is a decree of the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMIT) dated 28 July 2026 and published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 200 on 29 August. Article 1 says the 2026 calls will appear in the Gazzetta and on the site of UIBM, the Italian patent and trademark office, within thirty days. That meant about 28 September.

It didn’t happen. On 7 October 2026 the Ministry’s list of directorial decrees, whose latest entry is dated 6 October, held no call for any of the three measures. So there’s no opening date, no platform and no final rulebook yet. Only the money, at the same level as in 2024 and 2025.

Last year’s calendar is the best guide, though nothing obliges the Ministry to repeat it. The 2025 calls were signed on 29 September and reached the Gazzetta on 8 October. The windows opened seven to eleven weeks later, and each time the closure decree was signed on the opening day because the money was gone. Brevetti+ had done the same in October 2024.

Measure and 2026 budget	What it pays for	2025 rate and cap	2025 window
Brevetti+ (patents), €20 million	Outside services to industrialise and sell a patented invention	80% up to €140,000; 85% with gender equality certification; 100% if co-owned with a university or public research body	Invitalia platform; opened 20 November at noon, money gone that afternoon
Disegni+ (designs), €10 million	Prototypes, moulds and services to bring a registered design to market	80% up to €60,000; 85% with certification	Unioncamere site 2025disegnipiu.it; opened 18 December, closure decreed the same day
Marchi+ (trademarks), €2 million	Fees and services for EU and international filings already made	80% up to €6,000 per EU mark; 90% up to €9,000 per international mark; €25,000 per company	Unioncamere site 2025marchipiu.it; opened 4 December, closure decreed the same day

Who can apply, and how much does each scheme pay?

All three are for micro, small and medium enterprises in the business register with their registered and operating seat in Italy. Size is measured the EU way. You need fewer than 250 staff and turnover of €50 million or less; above that, a balance sheet of €43 million or less still gets you in. These grants count as de minimis aid (EU Regulation 2023/2831). That kind of aid stops at €300,000 per company over three years. Run an innovative startup (a young tech company listed in a special section of the register)? Your investors’ 65% tax break counts as de minimis aid to your company, so add everything up first.

Brevetti+: services that turn a patent into revenue

The 2025 call wanted a recent patent: Italian and granted after 1 January 2024 (an exclusive licence recorded at UIBM also worked), or European and validated in Italy from the same date. Only an application so far? A national one filed after 1 January 2023 was enough if its search report wasn’t negative. At least one claim had to clear two of three hurdles. The three are novelty, inventive step and industrial application. Compare the 2024 and 2025 calls and every cut-off date sits a year later. Exactly a year. So look up the 2026 dates the day the call comes out.

The money paid for outside specialists in three groups: engineering and industrialisation (feasibility, prototypes, testing, certification), organisation and market work, and technology transfer such as licence agreements. Every plan needed at least one service from the first group, and the other two together couldn’t pass 30% of it. At 80%, €175,000 of eligible services reaches the €140,000 cap. A gender equality certification (the certificazione della parità di genere created by Law 162/2021) lifted the rate to 85%, and a patent co-owned with a university or public research body to 100%.

Applications went in online through Invitalia, the state development agency that ran the scheme, with every document digitally signed by the legal representative. Invitalia had 180 days to decide, including an interview with the company. You then had 18 months to complete the services, and could draw up to 30% in advance against a bank or insurance guarantee.

Disegni+: from registered design to finished product

Disegni+ funds the step after registration. The design had to be yours, registered from 1 January 2023 and before you applied, at UIBM, at EUIPO (the EU’s office) or through WIPO, the UN’s intellectual property agency, with Italy designated. Moulds had the highest ceiling, €35,000, and prototypes came next at €13,000. Technical advice on production or materials was capped at €8,000, certification at €5,000. Market work, communication design and legal advice on counterfeiting or licences got €3,000 apiece.

Nine months to finish, extendable by three. Up to half the grant could come up front against a guarantee. Companies funded in Disegni+ 2023 or 2024 were considered only if money was left over.

Marchi+: money back on trademarks you’ve already filed

Marchi+ is a refund, not a project. Measure A covered an EU trade mark filed at EUIPO from 1 January 2022 and already registered when you applied: 80% of the costs, up to €6,000 per mark. Measure B covered an international filing through WIPO’s Madrid system (one application, many countries), made from 1 January 2022 and already published in the Madrid Monitor database: 90%, up to €9,000. Gender equality certification added five percentage points to either rate. Fees, logo design, searches and professional help all counted, and payment came within 80 days.

What can you prepare before the call opens?

More than most founders think, and almost none of it depends on the opening date. Here’s our order of work, assuming the 2026 calls resemble last year’s.

1. Check you’re an SME on the EU numbers, then list every de minimis aid received in the last three years.
2. Pull the IP paperwork together. That’s the granted patent or search report, the design certificate, or the EUIPO registration or Madrid Monitor publication, plus receipts showing the fees were paid.
3. Make sure the legal representative has a firma digitale, Italy’s digital signature. Try it on an actual PDF before you need it.
4. Ask for a DURC (proof that your social security contributions are paid). And dig out your catastrophe insurance policy. Law 213/2023 makes companies carry one, and every 2025 call asked for it.
5. Choose suppliers and ask for quotes broken down into person-days. Brevetti+ also wanted a business plan for the patent. Disegni+ wanted signed quotes on letterhead, with the supplier’s CV, dated after the call’s notice appeared: agree the scope now, sign later.
6. Got a gender equality certification or the legality rating (rating di legalità, a score from the Italian competition authority)? Have the certificates ready to upload. With the certification your rate goes up, and holders of the rating had 5% of each 2025 call’s budget set aside for them.

Mistakes that cost applicants the grant

Timing comes first. Under the 2025 Brevetti+ call, a service invoiced, even partly, on or before the day you applied couldn’t be funded, and Disegni+ likewise paid only for costs incurred after the application. Say you ordered the prototype in October to get ahead: that invoice is yours. Marchi+ is the mirror image. Apply before the EU registration comes through and you aren’t eligible yet.

Then come papers you can’t fix later. Quotes left out of a Disegni+ application couldn’t be added afterwards, and every Brevetti+ invoice had to show the CUP, the project code issued with your application, or it didn’t count.

The wrong supplier is the third trap. All three calls excluded your own shareholders and directors, their close relatives and companies linked to yours. Brevetti+ added employees, co-owners of the patent and whoever licensed it to you.

Last, the clock. Files were handled in order of arrival, so one finished at 12:40 can lose to one sent at 12:01, and in 2025 a file saved for the next morning found the window shut. One more Brevetti+ trap: licensing the patent to someone else before the services were finished was grounds for revoking the grant.

What else pays for patents and trademarks, in Italy and abroad?

In Italy the tax tools run all year. The patent box lets you deduct an extra 110% of the R&D costs behind patents, designs and copyright software. Trademarks are out. The R&D tax credit gives back part of what you spend on qualifying research. The 2025 Brevetti+ call barred other state aid on the same costs, with narrow exceptions, so ask your accountant how they combine. For other grants, see Lombardy’s call for innovative startups and what’s open for founders under 35.

In Europe there’s the EUIPO’s SME Fund 2026: applications from 2 February to 4 December 2026, though by 7 October its trade mark and design voucher had run out. The patent voucher was still open: 75% of national or European patent application fees, up to €1,000, says the German patent office. In the United States help comes as a discount: the basic filing fee for a utility patent is $350, or $140 for a small entity and $70 for a micro entity.

Filing abroad? How to patent an idea in Italy explains the 12-month priority window.

Your day-one checklist

1. Set a weekly reminder to look at the UIBM and MIMIT sites, and keep it until the 2026 calls are out.
2. When the call lands, read it that day. Note the opening hour, the platform and the new cut-off date for patents, designs or marks.
3. Apply for the scheme that fits the IP you own today. A bigger cap is no use if you don’t qualify for it.
4. Freeze Brevetti+ and Disegni+ spending until the application is in.
5. Have every file signed a week early and test the platform login the day before.
6. Submit at opening time. In 2025, that was noon.

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. The 2026 calls may change the rules described here: check the official call or ask a professional before you apply.