The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) announced last week that it will be holding a meeting next month at WIPO headquarters to discuss the use if intellectual property (IP) assets as a tool to raise financing. This meeting, to be held on March 10, 2009, will discuss using IP assets, namely "copyright, patents, trademarks, designs – as collateral, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises which depend on know-how and IP assets to bolster company value" as referenced within the WIPO press release (link below). As further noted within the press release, "[u]sing untapped intangible assets to secure finance is all the more crucial for companies in the current economic environment," recognizing that "[i]ntangible assets are estimated to account for the bulk of corporate value today," and that "the financial potential of IP assets has yet to be fully realized, largely because systems of financial accounting remain primarily tailored to tangible assets. The continued growth and success of IP financing hinges on legal and regulatory support, the awareness of the banking industry and sophistication of capital markets."

In addition, and if you are in Indianapolis tomorrow evening, I will be one of three panelists at an evening presentation for the Indiana Biomedical Entrepreneur Network (IBEN) to be held at the Ruth Lilly Learning/Riley Outpatient Center Auditorium on the Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus. As noted within the IBEN seminar webpage (link below), "[t]he program will be a panel discussion focusing on the start-up company and the importance of protecting its intellectual property, reasons to secure formal IP protection, common strategies employed by companies, the importance of IP to investors, and recent changes in patent law and the potential impact." The presentation, as referenced above, will include a discussion of leveraging a company’s IP assets, covering a similar scope as the upcoming March WIPO meeting. The other two panelists at tomorrow evening’s seminar are Melinda Schriver, President of LacPro Industries, LLC, and Dustin DuBois, a partner at my firm in the Private Equity and Venture Services Group. This event will be moderated by Michael Swift, a partner at Ice Miller LLP in the Intellectual Property Group. I hope to see you there.

WIPO Press Release: LINK
IBEN Website: LINK
IBEN Seminar Webpage: LINK