People are typically interested in the value of their intellectual property due to some kind of forthcoming transaction. Valuing intellectual property while raising funds, selling a business, forming a joint venture or collaborating is useful. A few steps can improve the value of your organisation’s intellectual property before significant transactions.
Everyone Should Know and Understand the Value of Intellectual Property
Making sure intellectual property is not floundered at the outset is the first step towards making sure you derive maximum value from your intellectual property. For instance, if an employee goes to an industry event and talks about how a particular research path or solution did work for your business. This small piece of information is extremely valuable, and it could save a competitor tens or hundreds of thousands of research dollars.
Another instance is if an employee decides that a particular improvement they made to the company’s product or manufacturing process was easy or the problem wasn’t significant, so they don’t report it to their manager before it was implemented. This potentially patentable invention could be valuable if it is a problem common to the industry.
Consider All Available Protection for Key Products
Consider the different types of competitive advantage you may have in relation to the product or technology, and then determine which type of IP you might best use to protect it. Patents protect functionality, but you can also keep certain things as trade secrets if you take affirmative action to do so. With aesthetic design or product shape, you can also consider using a three-dimensional trademark to bolster the protection offered by designs and copyrights.
Ensure Proper Budget for Your 3-5 Year IP Filing Strategy
It is critical that you have a clear documented understanding of the 3-5 year cash flow requirements of your IP filing strategy from the outset and make provisions to ensure you will have free cash to match those expenses at the appropriate time.
Failure to match the timing of cash flow with IP spending often results in making forced decisions with regard to the scope of protection, possibly accepting narrower than required claim amendments, not proceeding with one or more applications from the portfolio, or cutting back the geographical coverage in the filing strategy.
While there are certainly tactical moves that can be made to support and grow an IP portfolio at any time, it is consistency and implementation of a long-term strategy for raising capital and generating revenue from an IP portfolio that creates the most value.
