Patent evaluation

Patent valuation is the determination of the economic value of patent rights. There are several reasons for evaluating patents, such as the sale of a patent or a patent portfolio, accounting reasons, the safeguarding of credits, or the strategy related to foreign applications. Also in the scope of so-called due diligence analyses, expert opinions assessing a company’s patents are required.

To this end, an expert (expert in patent valuation) furnishes a written opinion (valuation opinion), specifying basic information, the valuation method and the result as a monetary value. Patent valuation experts are, for example, patent attorneys having the required legal and technical knowledge in the respective field. Basis of the patent valuation are usually the legal, technical and economic determining parameters, examples of which are given in the following table.