The Italian government is boosting intellectual property protection and financing innovation in two ways. Firstly by the end of the year, it will be more appealing for banks to invest in venture capital on innovative companies for the commercialization of patented products. A crucial point to give effectiveness to this form of investment is, therefore, the evaluation of the patent. To answer this need, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Italian Banking Association worked together to elaborate a new software tool for calculating the economic value of patented inventions. The second good news is that in the early months of 2010 there will be new incentives for patenting inventions, arising within SMEs that invest in innovation. In order to support this way of promotion of intellectual property, it was established a "National Fund for Innovation" counting on an initial 60 million euros.