Irish tax breaks hook author's interest

BEST-SELLING AUTHOR Philippa Gregory is to base the international intellectual property and social media aspects of her business in Ireland.

At a gathering of professional services representatives in Dublin yesterday, the author of The Other Boleyn Girlsaid she was "extremely pleased" to be locating a significant portion of the operations of her company, Philippa Gregory International, in Dublin.

"Ireland was the first stop on my first book tour almost 30 years ago and I look forward to spending more time here in the future."

Tony Mason, chief executive of Philippa Gregory International, said a significant amount of the company's future international royalties would be located in Ireland as well as its social media operations, a particular focus of growth for the company.

"We want to look into developing the software use of material. That might lead to the development of games or apps, for example. This will be all based out of Ireland."

Ireland's tax rate, benign intellectual property climate and level of customer and professional services were the key factors behind the company's decision to base its IP and social media operations in Ireland rather than alternative destinations such as the Netherlands or Monaco, Mr Mason said.

Members of the legal, banking and cultural communities attended yesterday's event organised by accountancy firm MKO Partners, which aimed to highlight Ireland's ability to capture the international Intellectual Property market.

According to Frank Keane, partner at MKO, Ireland has major competitive advantages in the field of intellectual property.

"The main reasons that companies are choosing to locate their intellectual property operations here are Ireland's corporate tax rate and section 291 (a) of tax legislation, which gives tax relief on capital expenditure for the development of intellectual property."

Among the companies that have recently based IP operations in Ireland are Brandvis Ltd, which developed a patent which covers the software and processing of mass-customised workwear and online social media company Weedle, which has developed its search and social graph algorithms here.

Ireland was ranked seventh out of 24 in the Global Intellectual Property Index in 2009, the first year Ireland was included in the index.

The index assesses 24 leading economies for protection and enforcement of patents, trademarks, copyright, and domain names.