2020-03-01 Business Insider

REPORT: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

http://www.insider.co.uk March 2020 INSIDER 39

WARNING TO

PROTECT THE

VALUE OF

IP ASSETS

By KEN SYMON

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I

NNOVATION is going to

be more of a business and

economic driver in the months

and years ahead. As the pace

of business and the pace of change

speeds up, that brings with it new

and disruptive technologies, products

and processes as companies seek

to gain competitive advantage. All

of that points to a greater need for

businesses to define and protect their

knowhow, their intellectual property.

This has created a growing need

for intellectual property specialists

to help businesses define, value

and protect what is a key but often

unseen asset. Gordon Stark, chief

operating officer of Murgitroyd, one

of Europe’s top five patent attorneys

which is Glasgow-headquartered,

says this creates increasing

opportunities for the sector.

He says: “What we see from a

practice perspective is companies

becoming more aware of IP as a

business asset. What comes of that

is not just protecting IP but certainly

we see continued focus and drive

from our clients around valuing IP

and even selling it as a commercial

asset which hasn’t been done a huge

amount because of the way it doesn’t

show on your company’s finances

or balance sheet in the same way a

building would.

“It is a form of property, as the

name looks to, but we certainly see

more of that now. Clients would,

for example, be doing more reviews

of their IP estate and maybe if IP is

not central to their business strategy

then they would look to offload that

so they could see some return on

investment, which means getting

it valued, having some mechanism

to getting it to the market and

selling it. These are new areas we are

continuing to see develop.”

The value of IP is often not

seen but can be realised including

in situations of business failure.

One recent example of this was

the failed Dumfriesshire-base

armoured vehicle specialist Penman

MW. The trading business and

some of the company’s assets were

bought by Martin Williams (Hull)

Ltd in a deal that saved 16 of the

company’s original 44 jobs. But the

administrators led by Blair Nimmo

of KPMG retained the intellectual

property in Penman MW’s armoured

vehicle system and at time of writing

were considering options for its sale.

Stark at Murgitroyd says: “You do

see that pulled out sometimes as an

asset if a company is going through a

liquidation event. We do hear more

from accountants around ‘Can we

value it? Can we sell it? Just like the

desks and the chairs and vans etc.

“Another example is that Ineos

bought the rights to the Defender

from Land Rover when they stopped

making it and were going to make

a successor so it shows what can

be done – they bought some of the

rights to keep that going.”

If insolvency specialists can spot

the sale of intellectual property as

they analyse a failed business and

seek to recover value from it, how

often do management teams in the

One of the challenges with IP is that

it can sit with different people in a

business... protecting the IP is unlikely

to be the full part of their role

Gordon Stark, Murgitroyd (below)

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