Saitama Prefecture has reopened applications for a subsidy that pays part of the cost of filing patents, trademarks, and other industrial property abroad, launching a second call for applications under its Reiwa 8 (the current fiscal year, running to March 2027) program cycle.
The scheme, formally called the SME Overseas Business Expansion Support Subsidy (Overseas Filing Support Program), is run by the Saitama Prefecture Industrial Promotion Corporation, a public-interest foundation, using a budget granted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Kanto Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry. It reimburses applicants for part of the expense of filing industrial property rights with foreign patent offices, covering patents, utility models, industrial designs, trademarks, and a filing category the supplied excerpt lists only as a "countermeasure trademark," a term the excerpt does not further define.
To apply, a company must have its head office or a business office in Saitama Prefecture and must be planning to file one of those rights with a foreign patent office. The listing sets out nine numbered eligibility conditions, but the supplied excerpt breaks off partway through the first one. The subsidy rate, the maximum grant amount, and the application deadline are not detailed in the material reviewed here.
The stated purpose is to help Saitama-based small and mid-sized companies enter new overseas markets, expand their business abroad, and strengthen their international competitiveness by offsetting the cost of protecting patents and trademarks in other countries.
For readers outside Japan, the funding structure is the more durable takeaway: a national ministry supplies the money through a regional bureau, but a prefecture-level, public-interest foundation runs the application process and disburses the subsidy directly to companies. It is a common shape for Japanese SME support, even when the specific terms of a given call, as here, are only partially disclosed.