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Make your marque

Richard Goslan finds that intellectual assets can take many forms, but they should never be ignored

In any business deal, a little due diligence can go a long way – especially when it comes to being sure about what intellectual property (IP) rights are included in the transaction. Just ask anyone at Volkswagen unfortunate enough to have been involved in the purchase of Rolls-Royce and Bentley back in 1998.

The German car giant spent £430m buying everything physically necessary to build a Rolls-Royce, including its plant at Crewe, but overlooked the fact that the trademark for the luxury brand belonged to the company’s aircraft engine manufacturer, not to the car maker.

Ultimately, VW lost out on owning the all-important Rolls-Royce trademark to its domestic rival, BMW. It was a colossal and expensive oversight.

But if failing to check on what intellectual assets are included in an acquisition is costly, neglecting to protect your own IP could also come back to haunt you. With budgets under pressure, companies could be exposing themselves to unnecessary business risks..........

When it comes to protecting intellectual property rights, you are never too big – or too small – to trip up.......................

And at a time of economic volatility, with a marked rise in insolvency, having your IP audited and valued is more important than ever.

“There are a lot of companies who don’t seem to know how to value their IP properly,” says Jackie Maguire, chief executive officer at Coller IP Management, a specialist in commercial IP management and evaluation.

“So when it comes to a merger or acquisition, they don’t have their ducks in a row for investors to know what the IP value of the company is. But valuing IP is more than just the numbers. It is important to understand the quality of what’s there.” more >