01 March 2009

Cash in your unused brands

Managing Intellectual Property

Steve Hoffman and W Drew Kastner tell technology companies how to turn trade mark licensing programmes into a cash cow

One-minute read

For companies across sectors, brands are key intellectual property assets. Great care is given to maintaining and enhancing their power, and significant value is derived from using brands to sell products, justify premium pricing and grow market share. Yet the value derived from these brands can be significantly increased through a carefully planned and executed trade mark licensing programme that not only generates near term revenue and profit, but builds brand equity as well. This is true especially in the technology industry, where the focus has traditionally been on patent enforcement and licensing. With the enormous pressures facing all companies in the this economic environment, the potential benefits of trade mark licensing should not be passed up.

After years of focusing on creating and acquiring patents and using them for defensive purposes, technology companies have recently begun to turn to monetisation through licensing and/or sales of non-critical or redundant patents. But less attention has been placed on trade mark monetisation, despite the fact that trade mark licensing is a low risk way to significantly increase IP-related cash inflow.

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Managing Intellectual Property

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Cash in your unused brands

The rest of this article is available to subscribers to Managing IP only.

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