6 Ways to pique investor’s interest with your high value trademark portfolio

If ever there is a business area with financial opportunity written all over it, it would be the process of extracting value from intellectual property portfolio. Majority of companies are simply unaware of the enormous economic value that lies untapped with their trademark and other IP portfolios. Examples of such values are a) defend your market authority b) outflank your rivals c) increase revenues and business valuation — which is the ultimate music to the ears of any investor.

At its simplest form trademark portfolio is a collective expression of innovative ideas waiting to be exploited. These expressions could be in words, graphics, smells or sound. The key issues in most businesses are not the lack of ideas but the lack of commercial caveat that can maximize the profitability of the business. Most companies explain their innovation value chain or their value proposition — many of them are able to demonstrate the baseline profit extracted from their value system. What you don’t see is a business owner or a company’s executive who sees beyond the surface — that foregone conclusion one or two revenue streams. Having a portfolio of a trademark and the foresight to tap into its commercial viability is supposed to do exactly that — it will help you identify multiple ways to increase your revenue from an already established profit system.

Now it is important to know that the term “ commercialisation “ is a very subjective term in the sense that there isn’t a single or universally accepted definition for it, it is simply down to many “conversion mechanisms” of value to profit you have adopted within your business strategy or business model. A codified trademark portfolio is a tool for converting commercial activity to profit in both near-term and long-term returns.

In near-term, the emphasis has to be on increasing the revenue while reducing the cost of maintaining the portfolio. An example is when a company reinforces its trademark(s) to the public without a new-line of the product or a new service offering. The company is simply commercialising its trademark as a marketing tool or a new way of advertising already existing product or service (whether they know it or not). Trademark portfolio can also be used to target adjacent market and to establish a strategic partnership with entities that are otherwise unreachable. In the long-term, the emphasis is to create an innovative idea, develop other intangible assets e.g a patent, business methods or indeed a new product line or an extensive service targeting new verticals captured under a single or multiple forms of intellectual property rights.

The following 6 keys steps will help you drive strong profit system with your trademark portfolio and stimulate an investor’s interest in your company.

1. Demonstrate the opportunities available to increase income from current trademarks in the portfolio
2. Show that the cost of creating and maintaining a new trademark is lower than the ROI they bring
3. Outline how your business protects and monitors the key trademarks in its portfolio
4. Show that you have a holistic approach to IP management this may include a patent strategy
5. Show that you have market-product future-proof opportunities (transient competitive strategy)
6. OKR metrics that indicate when a competitor is encroaching on the company’s trademark strategies