Fukui’s second call for overseas filing support tackles a familiar SME headache: patents and trademarks abroad are expensive well before overseas sales arrive. The program, run by the Fukui Industry Support Center, will reimburse up to half of eligible foreign filing costs, with a ceiling of ¥3mn per company.
| Feature | Support limit |
|---|---|
| Subsidy rate | Up to 1/2 of eligible costs |
| Per company cap | ¥3mn |
| Patent case cap | ¥1.5mn |
| Utility model, design, or trademark case cap | ¥600,000 each |
| Bad-faith trademark countermeasure cap | ¥300,000 |
The notice gets more granular than many subsidy summaries. Patent applications are capped at ¥1.5mn per case, while utility models, designs and trademarks are capped at ¥600,000 each. A separate ¥300,000 line applies to what the source summary describes as bad-faith trademark countermeasures.
Eligible costs include foreign patent-office filing fees, related domestic and local agent fees, and translation costs. Applicants must be SMEs, or groups made up mostly of SMEs, and the notice excludes deemed large enterprises. It also identifies Fukui Prefecture as the target area, so this should be read as regional support rather than a nationwide scheme.
The policy read-through is straightforward. For smaller companies eyeing overseas expansion, the real pain is often the surrounding process, not just the official filing fee. Fukui’s subsidy is designed to shave that broader bill in half, within fairly tight per-case limits.