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IP Strategy & Due Diligence

Our Expertise

Protecting intellectual property is an important part of a business’s foundation and the strategy of how to deliver, manage and extract value can be key to success. This is why IP Asset offers a range of IP strategy products to support businesses and investors.

For businesses, our strategic advice helps set a path towards achieving their commercial goals. This may include preparing for investment, exploiting licensing opportunities, positioning for a trade sale exit or maximising tax efficiency.
For investors, our commercial IP deep dives support pre-investment or pre-acquisition due diligence processes and provide the reassurance that an investment prospect has the necessary IP security. This will include areas such as ownership, protection, security, weaknesses and commercial potential. Post investment or acquisition, our strategic advice will help maximise the potential in preparation for a future exit.
For matters related to IP strategy, engaging early in the business journey typically yields the best results. This enables issues to be surfaced early and resolutions to be set in motion.

IP Landscape

Overview

The IP Landscape is a fast and cost-effective report outlining the IP position of a business, an investment or acquisition target or a competitor’s business. Generated using a specialist search package, the report will provide an overview of the patent portfolio, application trends and geographical information gathered from the public domain.

When to conduct an IP Landscape
For businesses, an IP Landscape can be a reassuring addition to an investment pack or provide initial research for a potential new businesses proposition
For investors, it offers a fast and efficient way to gain an overview of a target company or the IP position of competitors to a portfolio company, prospective investment or acquisition.
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IP Audit

Overview

The IP Audit captures the current IP position while highlighting the strengths and weaknesses as an IP focused health check. We start with a data gathering meeting with a senior individual or team to understand the company and position. The IP Audit identifies existing and potential IP assets, potential risks and includes advice on strengthening the IP position. Past audits have identified ownership and confidentiality issues as well as holes in protection.

An IP Audit would include:

  • An overview of assets (including registered IP and unregistered IP).
  • Identification of potential risks or weaknesses.
  • Recommended solutions to issues identified.

Conducting an IP Audit can help to identify, protect and future-proof key business assets. Benefits include:

  • Protecting the business and minimise risk.
  • Informing the business plan and strategy.
  • Informing costing decisions to save capital.
  • Demonstrating value to potential investors.

For investors, an IP Audit can support due diligence processes. This would include:

  • Establishing the current IP position of a prospective investment or reassure potential acquirers.
  • Identifying and prioritising issues based on risk.
  • Identifying growth opportunities through underused IP assets to exploit.
When to conduct an IP Audit

For businesses, conducting an IP Audit in the first year of trading can be beneficial to ensure protection is in place from the get-go. Other key milestones include, before launching a new product or service, raising investment, commencing joint ventures or when reassessing the business strategy.

For investors, an IP Audit can provide important intelligence during initial discussions and assessment of a prospective investment or acquisition, highlighting any potential issues that need addressing.

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IP Roadmap

Overview
The IP Roadmap is a forward looking holistic exploration of a business. By establishing opportunities and problems, we identify what the sources of value are, who is involved in the creation of this value and highlight key issues that need to be resolved to enable the business to progress. This allows the company to develop a strategy to address the issues in a co-ordinated manner that maximises the value capture for the business, whilst also helping identify relationships and issues that need managing. The IP Roadmap process can also be applied to future product developments to highlight potential risks and to put in place measures to avoid common pitfalls.

The process for an IP Roadmap is tailored to the business and covers elements such as:

  • Identifying core and non-core technologies.
  • Establishing technical and commercial problems that require attention before a product can be brought to market.
  • Establishing ownership status and developing strategies to minimise future risk while engaging with 3rd parties and contractors.
When to conduct an IP Roadmap
For businesses, the IP Roadmap can be conducted at any point, but it is of particular relevance when approaching a key milestone such as an investment raise or during the early development phase of a new technology.
For investors, the results of an IP Roadmap will be beneficial while conducting later stage due diligence on a prospective investment to establish forward looking potential. Likewise, for maximising potential, post investment.
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IP Investor Insights

Overview
The IP Investor Insights is a deep dive review specifically tailored to support due diligence into a prospective investment or acquisition opportunity. The objective is to establish whether the company has the necessary security in place for its IP assets, identify potential issues based on risk and investigate the factors influencing the ability to commercialise the IP.

Depending on the company being reviewed this could include:

  • A granular review of the company IP assets such as patents, trademarks, design rights. Establishing their strength and likelihood of grant based on prosecution history.
  • Predicted upcoming portfolio cost projections.
  • Establishing ownership status of key IP and recommended actions to secure ownership should the rights not be retained in the company.
  • Understanding the freedom to operate and dependencies involved in the commercialisation of the IP, such as a review of the licensing agreement contracts.
  • The findings of an Investor Insights exercise can be a strong tool to inform or justify a valuation of intellectual property.
When to conduct an IP Investor Insights
An IP Investor Insights review can be conducted in parallel with existing due diligence and early engagement may offer timely insights that may influence the rest of the process.
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Case Studies

Apple Licensing

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Oxford PV

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Faradion

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Frequently Asked Questions

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