By Rick S. Nathan of The Sorbi Group, LLC
Rick Nathan is a managing director at The Sorbi Group, LLC, a specialty firm providing business advisory, valuation, and financial expert services. He can be reached at rnathan@thesorbigroup.com.
How does a company (or inventor) make money by exploiting intellectual property in today's economic times? Establishing the value proposition behind IP to any owner, purchaser, or potential licensee is inherently a challenging task, which is subject to significant interpretation, judgment, and estimation - How much more so is that today as a result of U.S. and worldwide economic instability that has caused significant deterioration in the value of corporate equity thereby discouraging active investment. The ability to attract scarce capital, both financial and human, is critical for continued or minimally impeded IP exploitation. This sourcing of capital depends in large part on competing investment initiatives and programs across a plethora of industry landscapes. Weak and volatile capital markets fueled by greater illiquidity, decreased transparency and unclear oversight, and a decreased appetite for bearing financial and strategic risk in these uncertain times, pose significant barriers in supporting rapid advancement of critical discovery, as companies have historically relied heavily on capital markets to finance their research and development activi...
