New toolkit launched to help businesses exploit their Intellectual Property
Businesses will benefit from a new ‘IP Finance’ toolkit, advising on how to understand and present the value of their Intellectual Property.
British businesses will benefit from a new ‘IP Finance’ toolkit, advising on how to understand and present the value of their Intellectual Property (IP) to potential lenders.
Developed by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO), it will support small businesses to use their intellectual property assets to secure the finance they need for company growth.
Minister for Intellectual Property, Baroness Neville-Rolfe DBE said:
The UK now invests more in ideas and brands than factories or machinery. Small businesses are the economic bedrock of the UK and it is vital that we help them exploit their IP to secure appropriate finance and grow.
Too often businesses and lenders do not fully identify and value the IP they have. It’s essential that we continue to create the right environment for them to flourish, so we can benefit from their creative designs, inventions and ideas. The IP Finance toolkit is an important step towards businesses making the most of their IP.
The IP Finance toolkit will help businesses to present the security and financial worth of their IP when seeking finance and help banks recognise the value of IP in a business. It will assist businesses which are rich in intangibles, but lack traditional assets, to make a stronger case when they need to access the finance they need to grow.
The toolkit has been developed to:
- help lenders and businesses talk the same language when understanding the value of IP
- encourage and guide businesses to document their IP assets ahead of any application for finance
- help businesses to develop more effective IP management and commercialisation strategies
- raise awareness of the wide variety of finance options available for IP-rich businesses
Minster for Intellectual Property Baroness Neville-Rolfe launched the new toolkit at the Managing Intellectual Property International Patents Forum in London.
Notes to Editors
1.The ‘IP Finance toolkit’ has been created with industry and the financial services sector in response to the ‘Banking on IP? The role of intellectual property and intangible assets in facilitating business finance’ report. The report was published in October 2013. It sought to examine how effectively SMEs are able to use their intellectual property assets to secure the finance they need for their business’s growth. It highlighted barriers faced by IP-rich businesses seeking debt finance.
In March 2014 the IPO published “Banking on IP, An Active Response”. This summarised the IPO’s conclusions and set out the actions it intended to take to address some of the barriers highlighted in the original report.
It includes:
- templates and guidance to help businesses accurately identify and describe their IP assets in a way that prepares them for finance applications and supports the decision making of a potential lender
- guidance on developing an effective IP strategy, commercialisation of IP and effective due diligence processes
- improved guidance on finance options for IP rich businesses
- a glossary of accepted definitions to be used when describing and valuing IP
2.UK firms invest more in ideas and knowledge than buildings and machinery, around £126 billion to £88 billion annually. Half of this investment is for protected intellectual property rights which represent 4.3% of UK GDP.