Intellectual Property: Useless Without The ‘Intellect’
A belated Happy New Year! There hasn’t been much time for blogging at RI-towers of late. Anyone here who thought the credit crunch might bring a well-earned rest has been disappointed; lots to do.
The surge of work for us seems to be proving the theory that investors are doing more technical due diligence during the downturn.
There was, however, time to read the read the excellent “Nanotechnologies in 2009: Creative Destruction or Credit Crunch” (opens as PDF) by bleeding-edge investor, nanotechnology guru and prolific blogger Tim Harper.
In addition to some characteristically fascinating insight about a widening funding gap, the sacrifice of billion-dollar potential revenues, and the “hokey cokey” approach he expects to see from Clean Tech investors in coming months, he also mentions the danger for investors in raiding “fire sales” for valuable intellectual property: it is frequently worthless without the people who thought it up.
An insightful point.
What to do?
Technical due diligence, aside from ensuring the intellectual property is sound and useful, also needs to look at what it will take to implement.
IP can bring huge returns in the right hands, but if it’s revolutionary enough to be that valuable then chances are there’s only a handful of people in the world with the knowledge to do anything with it. Put it in the wrong lab and it will sit in a draw.
We need to heed Tim’s warning and make sure tech due diligence includes people as well as paper.