A media release from Valuation Consulting's Kelvin King spreads the word that, together with Inngot, his company will be seeking to generate some of the evidence upon which the UK's fabled commitment to evidence-based intellectual property policy will be based. According to Kelvin:"Work for the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) has established that the majority of UK business investment, and business value, now lies in intangible rather than fixed, tangible assets. Now, the IPO has commissioned Valuation Consulting Co and Inngot to investigate the role of intellectual property (IP) in facilitating business finance and economic growth.
IP-backed finance is gathering pace on the international stage, and the EU is working to encourage IP ‘valorisation’. However, the area is not without its challenges, including asset identification, due diligence procedures [these being practical issues that crop up regularly even outside the context of valorisation], valuation and value realisation [these lying, in this blogger's opinion, at the heart of this project since they seem to be characterised by so much uncertainty and lack of consistency, at least when viewed from a lay standpoint]. This new IPO project has been initiated to examine the current role of IP in facilitating business finance and economic growth within the UK, and investigate the barriers to the broader use of IPRs and related business intangible assets for debt and equity fundraising.
The qualitative study complements wider Government initiatives to encourage business investment in innovation. It is particularly directed at understanding how value-producing intangibles can be harnessed more effectively to meet the funding requirements of knowledge-based small and medium enterprises seeking to innovate and grow. The results, drawing on markets where IPRs are used for funding, will be used to develop methods to enable wider application where lenders and IP-rich enterprises could both benefit".
IP Finance wishes Kelvin and his colleagues the best of luck. We all look forward to seeing not only the conclusions that are reached but the data and the assumptions on which they are based.
