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Deploying IP Assets as Loan Collateral: An Emerging Trend
Over the last 15 years, there has been a shift toward more creativity in the monetization of intellectual property. Companies are no longer simply utilizing patents as defensive weapons in actions against aggressors in patent assertions and follow-on infringement actions. Strategic licensing securitizations and collateralizations have provided new and thoughtful approaches to effectively leverage the technology asset value inherent in patents and other IP.
IP Directors, Chief Financial Officers, Chief Technology Officers and others are not yet at the stage where they are working together to ensure the effective monetization of IP in companies. However, a common 'monetization' lexicon is starting to develop across the disciplines of finance, technology and intellectual property law. Successes at IBM, Lucent, Dow, Texas Instruments, Motorola and others in developing and installing a generative capacity to characterize, categorize and monetize patents are providing a template for others to follow.
Ironically, it is not at these large corporations with their extensive patent estates and large IP departments that we see the most creative monetization approaches being employed. Instead, it is at entities like Royalty Pharma, ATD Corporation, and Cambridge Display Technology where new solutions are being adopted. As is often the case, innovative approaches and products emerge from the edge, where companies face challenges to growth and are driven by the exigency of circumstances and the cost of capital, and where need and creativity meet to deliver opportunity.
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.
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.
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.
Legal Possession: What Does It Mean?
Possession of real property is a matter of physical fact. Having the right or legal entitlement to possession is not "possession," possession is "the fact of having or holding property in one's power." That power means having physical dominion and control over the property.
The Anti-Assignment Override Provisions
UCC Sections 9406(d) and 9408(a) are one of the most powerful, yet least understood, sections of the Uniform Commercial Code. On their face, they appear to override anti-assignment provisions in agreements that would limit the grant of a security interest. But do these sections really work?