Intellectual property appraisal or how to cash in on your nous? (part 6)

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(Inventor’s sketches)

Participating in a wide range of projects brings excitement to our lives. This is exactly what happened when I decided to apply for the Innograd “Skolkovo” innovation program and plead my case to receive a research grant to develop the “DO-RA” dosimeter-radiometer for mobiles and smartphones. The participation regulations required that I complete a mandatory application form on the Skolkovo website in both Russian and English. Completing the form in both languages makes it easier for Skolkovo experts to familiarize themselves with your inventions. In the best-case scenario, your application takes just 10 days to process and another 5 days for the results of the expert group to be sent out. Fate smiled on me that day, the specialists kept to their schedule. After exactly 15 days, I received a golden letter, a positive decision from the “Skolkovo non commercial fund for developing a research and new technology commercialization center”. The letter informed me that an initial appraisal had determined that it met the Skolkovo criteria.

With renewed enthusiasm I continued preparing the documents to register a legal entity with the aim of receiving Skolkovo participant status, luckily as a thrifty entrepreneur I had a legal entity lying around just for this purpose. “Intersoft Eurasia” JSC has been gathering dust for around a year. Therefore, I was hounded by the tax authorities, who sent a quarterly letter posing the same question: why is your JSC inactive and therefore not lining the Russian treasury’s coughers?! It crossed my mind that the tax inspector would be quite surprised to see Intersoft spring into life. Furthermore, resident status at Skolkovo provides a haven from the vast majority of Russian profit and property taxes etc. and UST in the Skolkolvo jurisdiction is only 14%!!!

I stumbled across the “Intellectual property valuation” section of the Skolkovo site. I remember a saying from the 90s that “An idea costs nothing in our country!!!” I thought things have changed in our country in the 20 years since then. I started looking for intellectual property appraisers online. After the third time I heard someone say they did not deal with intellectual property valuation, I began to think that the saying rang true, but chance came to the rescue again. I remembered our property appraisers “Sterkh Ekspert” mentioned that they had carried out some sort of intellectual property valuation for state corporation “Rosnano” on behalf of “Deloitte and Touche”. I called the “Sterkh Ekspert” supervisor Ol’ga Mikhailovna Astaf’eva and told her my situation. Ol’ga admitted that she had never conducted such an evaluation, but said she would try to come to terms with the technology and methodology or Rosnano.

It had been about a month since I spoke to the appraisers from “Sterkh Ekspert”, during which we kept in regular contact by email. They asked me various questions to which I replied and sent numerous documents to their experts for valuation. Then on 15 September O. M. Astaf’eva called me and I could hear the excitement in her voice when she said, “we did it!!!” At first I didn’t understand, did what!? And asked What did you do!? Then she couldn’t contain her excitement any longer and said: “We valuated your intellectual product”!!! “How much do you think it’s worth?!”. Without a second thought I said: “About a million (rubles)?!”. Pausing for a second, Ol’ga Mikhailovna replied: “Now multiply your million by 200, convert it into dollars, and this is the cost of the exclusive rights to your intellectual property: Patents for the “DO-RA” utility model!!! I was so shocked by the valuation of my IP that I nearly fell off my chair! Thoughts raced through my head! This is when it dawned on me that something in our country had drastically changed. They began to appreciate intellect!!!

After I had recovered from the initial shock, I carefully read the entire valuation report down to the very last detail. I made a personal note of two things: Firstly, the valuation of exclusive rights to the patent was only 36% of the total estimated value of the intellectual property. The appraisers made this decision because it was a “Start-up” project. Secondly, the evaluation method only used an estimated figure for the number of smartphones released over the next 10 years starting from 2012. In this instance, the appraisers didn’t take into account that this utility model could be build into all mobile phones without exception. Were they really that intimidated by the material worth of my immaterial property?! In my imaginary patent for the “DO-RA” model, the penetration rate and range of “DO-RA” device applications is much bigger. In total, the patent should also include all laptops, netbooks, tablets, palm and other mobile devices with their own OS (operating system). In short, I added a couple of zeros in my head to the estimated figure.

Индикатор ионизирующего излучения ДО-РА с функцией дозиметра-радиометра

  • Эксклюзивный дизайн и дорогие материалы отделки
  • Работает с собственной батареей
  • Подходит для iPhone
  • Может использоваться с ноутбукоми через переходник
  • Бесплатное ПО с расширенным функционалом
  • Конструкторская документация в международном формате IPC
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