How Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights can increase the value of your business

Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights can become a useful asset in the portfolio of your little business or corporation and should be managed judiciously.

One of the most daunting questions a little company owner faces when he or she decides to sell their business is “what do I have to sell?”. Aside from the phone number, address, and equipment, the main asset that is marketable is goodwill in most instances. However the concept of goodwill is elusive, amorphous, and difficult to quantify and monetize.

How do you measure goodwill? How hard would it be for another enterprise to amass the goodwill your organization has accrued in the marketplace from scratch? How swiftly could they develop their own excellent will specifically after the impending vacuum your exit will inexorably generate? Sure, accountants have artful techniques of ginning up the numbers in support of your goodwill appraisal, yet all the silver tongue number crunching will still leave you uneasy and leave your prospective bidders unconvinced.

1 surefire way of providing flesh, structure, and a skeleton to support your goodwill appraisal is the Intellectual Property portfoliio of your company. In particular, if you assert to a prospective bidder for your business that your goodwill is worth $ x, you could bolster your argument with a United States Patent and Trademark (USPTO) registration and/or a state registration of your Trademark. At least now your asserted appraisal of your goodwill has support in the form of a nice seal and ribbon which might release concerns your prospective purchaser might have regarding how they may possibly be able to monetize your goodwill.

In addition, if you are in the manufacturing business, a prospective bidder may feel far more at ease if you can point to some patents you have on the goods you make, or the proprietary techniques and processes you use in order to conduct your company. Your prospective bidder could take comfort in the truth that he or she may be given some leverage to assert in the marketplace with patent protection.

Now, on the flip side it is true that a portfolio of patents, trademarks, and copyrights can get a bidder to sit up straight and get their eyebrows creasing could also be difficult to appraise and monetize in their own proper. Not all patents, trademarks, and copyrights are enforceable or even useful. A lot of patents are not worth the paper they are printed on. Many trademarks upon which there is a registration are truly enforceable due to their inherent weaknesses. As such, if you are in the position of purchasing a company with an Intellectual Property portfolio, you may want to enlist a Patent Attorney to take a look at what is underneath the hood and do some diagnostics on the accurate strength and value of the value of the Intellectual Property portfolio.

As such, enterprise owners who desire to sell their enterprise sometime in the distant future would be properly advised to immediately start developing up a strong Intellectual Property portfolio consisting of Patents, Trademark registrations with the USPTO and their Secretary of State, and Copyright registrations. And on the other side of the transaction, a company purchaser need to be advised to enlist the services of an experienced Intellectual Property attorney to evaluate the strength of each and every Intellectual Property asset to arrive at a fair value of the company.

For much more info on patents, trademarks, and copyrights please pay a visit to the Los Angeles Patent Lawyer web site.