IP Asset Register

What is an IP Asset Register?

An intangible asset is an asset that lacks physical substance, unlike physical assets such as machinery and buildings, and usually is very hard to value. It includes patents, copyrights, franchises, goodwill, trademarks, trade names. It also includes software and other intangible computer based assets.

An Intangible Asset Register is a schedule of all intangible assets that your businesses owns along with information about their descriptions, age, type and any valuation assessments that have been carried out.

Why is IP Asset Registers important for business today?

Tracking and valuing your intangible assets provides the basis for you to better manage them and through better management, obtain full value out of them.

Options for better management include:

• Intangible assets such as brand or technology can be licensed to other businesses in order for you to quickly reach new markets and improve your company’s valuation
• Your investment in your intellectual property may quality for research and development tax credits
• Intellectual property protection can be obtained for high value assets but could be removed from low value assets

Under-utilized assets could be sold to someone who can extract more value from them Updated valuations and supporting documentation for your intangible assets will also provide banks with greater comfort over your business when lending you money.

Having an accurate value of Intangible Assets can greatly help any collaboration project with other organizations as it can form the basis of the value being contributed by each party.

Why is IP Asset Registers important for an event tomorrow?

• Communicating and justifying the value of a business is critical to any deal.
• Intangible Assets are a critical component of the value of many businesses.
• If you have been through the process of accurately valuing your assets ahead of time you are in a much better position to communicate that value during a deal.
• Investors will often use rule-of-thumb type metrics to compare your value to other similar businesses to gain comfort that they are not over-paying.

These metrics will often use balance sheet numbers as inputs so having your intangible assets fully reflected in your balance sheet will make it easier for investors to perform this analysis accurately and position your business in the most favorable light.

Pros of addressing IP Asset Registers

• Facilitates potential licensing of intellectual property
• Tax credits for research and development
• Intellectual property protection
• Clarifies internal value compared with market value
• Provides Greater comfort to banks.

Cons of not addressing this topic

• The full value of your business may not be realized particularly in discussions with banks and investors
• Potential loss of tax credits
• Collaboration with other parties on joint- development projects are difficult
• Money wasted on useless intellectual property protection.