The Hellenic Industrial Property Organisation (OBI), in collaboration with the Startup Greece team, participated in the international digital technology and innovation exhibition Beyond, which took place from April 4–6, 2025, for the first time in Athens (Metropolitan EXPO).
This annual event once again stood out as one of the most important technology and innovation events in Southeastern Europe. In recent years, it has attracted not only people involved in startups, but also leading investors, national and international research institutions and organizations, as well as emerging tech giants from around the world.
OBI was represented by Ms. Uioulli Papapostolou, Director of Technological Information and Head of the OBIs Innovation Agency.
In her keynote speech delivered during the “Startup Greece at Beyond Forum,” titled “Intangible assets build startups!”, she spoke about the protection of Intellectual Property, presenting processes and tools that transform the intangible assets of startups into reliable economic drivers, by:
- establishing a strong market position
- creating competitive advantage
- generating additional revenue through strategic moves in the field of licensing agreements
- enhancing negotiation leverage for IP holders in securing financial support, as industrial property rights emerge as vital tools for competitiveness
Referring to the work of OBI’s Innovation Agency, she emphasized its coordinating role and its aim to offer innovative services to researchers and businesses, to contribute to the development of the ecosystem, and, through the facilitation of networking and the internationalization of entrepreneurial efforts, to support targeted funding—ensuring the mobility of researchers towards innovative companies, as well as of the companies themselves toward the research sector.
Finally, reference was made to the services provided, such as the pre-search service, which examines the state of the art, along with new services currently in pilot stage, which are focused on: a) competitor monitoring search, b) freedom-to-operate search, identifying IP rights that might block the commercialization of a product,
c) validity search, assessing the strength of IP rights.
She concluded by noting that, according to a study by the European Patent Office, 29% of startups that file for IP rights secure funding with significantly greater success, due to owning those rights.
The speech was attended by startups, investors, organizations and experts from Greece and abroad, business entities, accelerators, inventors, and more.
In conclusion, funding opportunities were presented to the audience, including the SME Fund, OBI’s collaboration with the Hellenic Development Bank (HDB) for the implementation of the Patent Fund, the upcoming signing of a memorandum of cooperation with Elevate Greece, the EPO’s Deep Tech Finder digital tool for investor matchmaking, as well as the Technology Investor Score (TIS).
