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The Untapped Potential of IP Finance
Over the past few years, business, legal, and accounting authorities have quite rightly pointed out that corporate IP has far greater potential than its owners usually exploit. The consultancy McKinsey & Company has offered that, as a rule of thumb, a company that owns at least 450 patents and spends $50 million or more a year on R&D should possess enough intellectual property to bring some of it to market. Typically, 10% of the patent portfolio could be put to work in this way. McKinsey also suggests that IP assets could generate 5% to 10% of a company's operating income with little initial capital investment. Thus, effective IP-asset management can be equivalent to the improvement that might be expected from a 20% cut in expenses or from a successful acquisition. See Elton JJ, Shah BR, and Voyzey JN, 'Intellectual Property. Partnering for Profit,' The McKinsey Quarterly, 2002, Number 4 Technology.
But talk, even at the engagement rates of a McKinsey consultant, is still relatively cheap. On the other hand, nonperforming assets do no one any good, and no rational CFO takes pride in sleeping patents and other inactive IP. So why is IP so hard to monetize? One potential explanation for the underutilization of IP assets may be that current conventional monetization strategies are difficult to implement with respect to such assets ' even when a company overwhelmingly needs and desires such financial benefit. So, the question remains: What alternatives could such a company employ?
Intellectual Property Finance in Theory
Major Differences In UK, U.S. Copyright Laws
This article highlights how copyright law in the United Kingdom differs from U.S. copyright law, and points out differences that may be crucial to entertainment and media businesses familiar with U.S law that are interested in operating in the United Kingdom or under UK law. The article also briefly addresses contrasts in UK and U.S. trademark law.
Strategy vs. Tactics: Two Sides of a Difficult Coin
With each successive large-scale cyber attack, it is slowly becoming clear that ransomware attacks are targeting the critical infrastructure of the most powerful country on the planet. Understanding the strategy, and tactics of our opponents, as well as the strategy and the tactics we implement as a response are vital to victory.
The Article 8 Opt In
The Article 8 opt-in election adds an additional layer of complexity to the already labyrinthine rules governing perfection of security interests under the UCC. A lender that is unaware of the nuances created by the opt in (may find its security interest vulnerable to being primed by another party that has taken steps to perfect in a superior manner under the circumstances.
Removing Restrictive Covenants In New York
In Rockwell v. Despart, the New York Supreme Court, Third Department, recently revisited a recurring question: When may a landowner seek judicial removal of a covenant restricting use of her land?