Minister for the Economy, European Funds and Lands Silvio Schembri launched the Malta Intellectual Property Award 2022.
This €60,000 prize is aimed at recognising and promoting the creation of Intellectual Property in Malta, including patents, trademarks and registered designs that provide businesses, artists, and inventors with the means to protect products and their creations, as well as being encouraged to invest in innovation and creativity for the benefit of society.
In his speech, Minister Schembri spoke about the importance of patents, trademarks and/or registered designs, national and/or European, as European studies have shown that companies with trademarks register a higher income – 20% higher than companies that do not have them.
In addition to this, the salaries paid by owners of patents, trademarks and/or registered designs are on average 19.3% more than those paid by firms that do not enjoy these rights.
The theme for this year’s World Intellectual Property Day, which was marked earlier this week, is ‘Intellectual Property and Youth’, thus for this year’s award €12,000 will be allocated to the Emerging Innovation Initiative, for inventors aged between 16-30.
Minister Schembri said that these awards will help encourage local enterprises to emerge with creative ideas and at the same time support Maltese creativity.
More information on this award can be found on: commerce.gov.mt.