Nicholas Ferguson, Project Coordinator of HSbooster2 at Trust-IT Services, will join the second panel of the Annual IP Helpdesk Stakeholder Conference 2026 on Thursday 29 October. The conference takes place at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in Alicante, Spain. Hosted this year by the EUIPO, it brings together institutional actors, support service providers and businesses from across the European IP and innovation landscape. They will consider how the IP Helpdesk and related instruments can help small and medium-sized enterprises protect, manage and make use of their intangible assets, both within the EU and in global markets.
Why the event matters
The programme follows the SME journey from early guidance and business development through to exploitation, investment readiness and internationalisation. Sessions cover the impact of IP Helpdesk services on companies in Europe and in markets such as China, India, Latin America and South-East Asia. Others look at the complementary tools offered by the EUIPO and national IP offices, and at public and private investment opportunities, including IP-backed finance and licensing.
For the HSbooster2 community, the subject is a familiar one. Research and innovation projects face much the same question as SMEs once their results begin to take shape: how to protect what has been developed, and how to make sure it reaches users and markets. EU policy treats these questions side by side. On 1 March 2023 the Commission adopted two companion Recommendations under its knowledge valorisation framework. One was a Code of practice on the management of intellectual assets for knowledge valorisation, and the other a Code of practice on standardisation, which supports the integration of R&I activities with standardisation. IP protection and standardisation are sometimes presented as alternatives. In practice, they often work together: an organisation may protect a technology through patents while contributing to the standard that defines how it works with other products and systems.
HSbooster2’s role on the panel
Panel II, “From business support and development to exploitation of intangible assets”, runs from 11:45 to 12:45. It will look at how different support services accompany SMEs from early business development to the exploitation of innovation results. The panel brings together EUIPO business and innovation support services, the EUIPO SME Fund and pro bono services, examples of national-level support from EU IP offices, and EU-level services focused on dissemination and market uptake.
Nicholas Ferguson will show how standardisation can form part of the route from research and innovation results to market readiness and wider exploitation. For results that need to be interoperable, trusted or adopted across a sector, contributing to standards can be a practical way to reach users. The same applies where results need to inform future regulation.
HSbooster2 offers free support to research and innovation projects funded under any EU or national programme, including but not limited to Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe Programme. Its Proposal Support and Mentoring services connect projects with experienced standardisation experts at the proposal stage and during implementation, and the Standards Accelerator Service will follow. SMEs taking part in such projects can use this support to plan standardisation alongside their IP and exploitation strategies, rather than treating it as an afterthought.
