Thanks to Geoff Cooper (Fortis Private Investment Management) this blog is alerted to a recent article in the Financial Times entitled Intellectual property trade stirs up interest:"...signs of renewed interest in the bespoke deals could be the latest signal that the wider market is waking up once more [to deals backed by intellectual property]."
The article seems to have been spurred by the Vertex deal which involved the planned sale of rights rights to future milestone payments. Joff Wild's IAM blogpost is cynical:
"This is one area in which fortune really could favour the brave. I will be watching with interest. Just as long as none of my pension pot goes anywhere near any deal."
The blogger, disappointed with the apparent distressed sale of Ocean Tomo's IP auction business (see link here) because he saw the organisation as promoting confidence in IP (and future royalties) as a stand alone asset capable of being bought and sold, hopes there is truth to the FT article. His own experience, is that bad economic times force companies to look harder at ways of using and explaining their IP and the actual/potential revenue that can come from the IP. If those risks and rewards can be be better understood (eg though educational blogs like these and the [now forced] attention of owners of that IP) and better explained, perhaps more deals will come to fruition.
