Posts Tagged: "intellectual property ownership"

How Intellectual Property Informs the Investment in a Private Equity Transaction

Technology and intellectual property (IP) have become vital components to virtually every business in all industries as they often drive the value and efficiencies of a business and enable companies to monetize their products and services. In order to capitalize on this trend, private equity (PE) investors are making significant investments in companies focused on developing and commercializing IP. In 2017, a record number of PE deals were IP and technology focused, ranging from consumer-facing companies with valuations driven by trademark portfolios and brand awareness, to cloud platform and biotech companies with significant patent portfolios and research and development efforts. According to analysts of PE deal-trends, this wave of IP-centric PE transactions has continued and will continue to grow during 2018.

Joint IP Ownership Scenarios: A Graphical Look

I present ten scenarios for dealing with what is usually the most contested issue in pre-collaboration agreement negotiations – the ownership of foreground IP. These scenarios range from preferably avoiding joint IP ownership altogether to more complex situations involving joint IP ownership with both nonexclusive and exclusives licenses, as well as nonexclusive and exclusive cross-licenses, and even scenarios based on defining the parties’ respective fields of endeavor.