The
evaluation of intellectual property (IP) is one of the many services provided
by the FM Consulting valuation company to its clients. Such a task can
characterize an object of intellectual property as a commodity, and its
successful solution helps to obtain income from the exclusive right to own such
a commodity. If the current value of these rights was correctly determined in
the current market, they were formalized and documented, then intellectual
property becomes a liquid asset of your organization.
Part IV
article 1225 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation categorizes the
results of cogitative activities, which are classified as IP objects. So, based
on this classification, this type of property can be divided into several
varieties:
• Industrial
property, which is usually classified as development patents and inventions,
production specimens, service marks, commercial designations, integrated
circuit topologies and other IP objects.
• Objects
of copyright, which include various works of literature, music, painting and
other arts.
• Software
for computers and computers, summaries of information.
•
Information that is a trade secret or know-how. This is information that
relates to the financial, organizational or production sphere of the enterprise
that brings or can be of use, the results of research and scientific work, as
well as documentation not regulated by patents.
Intellectual
property refers to intangible assets, and it plays a special role for high-tech
enterprises, where its value has the largest share in the company's total
value.
In our
time, intellectual property is becoming a very important part of the
organization's assets. In some situations, the current market price of
intellectual property can far exceed the price of assets such as buildings,
structures, equipment, vehicles, and so on. Such an asset of the organization
determines its marketing decisions. This is most relevant for those
organizations that have a well-established reputation, well-known names,
brands.
The use of
intellectual property in the circulation, created both within the organization
itself and bought or leased outside its territory under a license, helps most
effectively to optimize the base, which is subject to taxation. At the same
time, all rights must be documented, an evaluation of intellectual property is
necessary to put it on the balance sheet as one of the intangible assets.
Any
benefits from the IP object can only be determined if it is directly applied in
the company's work. Therefore, most often an assessment of intellectual
property is necessary for those facilities, data and information about the
purchase and sale of which are widely distributed in the free market. These
include:
• Programs
for computers and complex equipment on management;
• Service
marks and trademarks;
•
Inventions;
• Know-How.
The
evaluation of intellectual property is carried out for certain transactions
with it or individual rights thereto (for example, the right to use). Examples
of these operations are:
•
Alienation or sale of such an object in an open market.
•
Introduction of an IP object into the authorized fund of the company.
• Transfer
of rights to the object and lease to third parties for temporary use.
•
Acceptance of the IP object as an inheritance (to calculate the amount of the
fee to a notary).
•
Registration of a license for the right to use the facility.
• Entering
the ownership of the company's balance sheet.
• Transfer
of the object to the bank as collateral for a loan.
•
Determination of the value of property of an enterprise subject to taxation.
•
Attraction of third parties for investment in the company.
• Calculate
the amount of payment for the creators of the intangible asset.
Experts
involved in the evaluation of intellectual property can face great
difficulties, which are related to the lack of open information, using which,
it would be possible to calculate the value of the object. Therefore, in the
course of their work, FM Consulting's evaluators use one of the three described
strategies:
• If the
intangible asset is already used by the company to generate income, the
intellectual property valuation will be based on information on its actual
commercial effectiveness. Indicator for determining the effectiveness can be
both the revenue received by the company as a result of direct use of IP, and
the reduction of costs from the use of the object.
• In the
event that the IP object is not currently operated by the company for profit,
but in the future such operation is planned, the evaluation is conducted in the
same way as in the previous paragraph. In this case, instead of real
performance indicators, the evaluator will use the predictions obtained as a
result of a detailed analysis of all factors. In addition, how accurately the
market value of intellectual property will be determined may depend on the
quality of the business plan for its operation.
• In the
event that an intangible asset is not used by the company to generate revenue
at the moment, and such use is not planned in the future, the cost of IP is
determined by a cost approach. That is, the valuer as the current value of the
object will consider the totality of costs that went into creating it.
• FM
Consulting, an evaluation company, provides quality and professional services
to determine the value of an intellectual property object. Based on the
performed calculations, the specialists will execute the evaluation report,
supplemented with detailed explanations and justifications. This document is
official and has legal force.