An Investor’s view of IP
Edward French, 19th November 2008

Contents
• Background
• Making money in IP
• The value in IP
• Costs in IP
• Selling IP
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Enterprise Ventures
Fund
Manager
Funds 3x Technology Dev Cap Funds Lancashire
Funds: ~£40m £10->25m Small Business
£100k-£1.4m £100k-£2m £10k-£300k
3

Our experience
• Backed over 40 IP-based companies
Pen computing
Social mobile game
• Ranging from
software...webservices...materials EDA tools
science... Etc. Diagnostic
webservice
• More than half have filed patents... Rest Mobile phone UI
copyright, designright, registered design.
Enterprise Mashups
E-learning
• Licensed dozens of technologies
E-tail
– Tried to license dozens more!
4

Making Money in IP
Recipe for riches:
1. You can do some cool work
2. You generate some strong IP that has
value
3. You sell this value to a “LargeCo” and
they pay you enough to cover your costs
and make a nice profit for the risk.
4. Retire somewhere sunny
5

Value in IP
• Why do large companies acquire IP ?
1. Because the patent means they need
your permission
6

Value in IP
• Why do large companies acquire IP ?
– Because they’re worried you’ll sue them
– Because they couldn’t have built it
themselves without- applies to stuff that’s
hard more than clever
– Because they can use it as a weapon
against competitors- important only in an
IP landscape
– Because it comes with other things.....?
7

Value in IP
IP Ranking
Patent on a process for making sunscreen more cheaply
New logo design for a beverage company
A web 2.0 site with 100,000 registered users
A more beautiful and practical arrangement of a mobile
phone protected with a registered design
A recipe for a common beverage
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How valuable is a patent?
4,000,000 patents
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Costs in IP
• Worldwide patents £x00,000
• Software patents/Business method patents – cheaper- but US only
• Other stuff is helpful
• Advice is patchy
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Selling IP
• Trick is not to!
Not this... But this...
Technology Reference design including the technology
Idea Product
Website concept User-base
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Conclusion
• IP on its own usually has little value
• Venture investors care about IP: but the good
ones care mainly about the IP story and how
it could drive exit
• IP shouldn’t run strategy, but you need an IP
Strategy
• Learn more: http://tinyurl.com/hyphen3 &
http://techgain.net
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Contact Details
Edward French
Email Edward.french@enterprise-
ventures.co.uk
Phone 07966 347407
Yuuguu ID edwardmfrench@gmail.com
Website www.rsgf.co.uk
Blog techgain.net
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