IP monetisation: know your value

If you don’t know what you have, any price may seem fair—including the wrong one, says Art Monk.

In C-suites and boardrooms around the world, capturing the value of patent portfolios is more than just a topic—it has become a mission. As the remaining life of these intangible assets drops away year by year and maintenance fees to keep them alive mount up, the enterprise comes to the point that decisions have to be made.

How can the enterprise capture the value of the portfolio? What is the portfolio actually worth? What would be an acceptable price for various assets in the portfolio?

These terse questions can sometimes generate very long answers, depending on the sophistication of your company’s IP operations and the breadth of the portfolio. Clearly, answering the simple question ‘what do we have in the portfolio?’ has many levels to it based on how the portfolio was assembled and the status of the patents within it.