IP Finance announces "IP Finance" ...

IP Finance's friends at Oxfirst are running a free webinar under the title "IP Finance" on 24 February 2015, 2 pm BST (British Standard Time). The speaker is another friend, Tony Clayton (right, Chief Economist of the UKIPO). Tony's "previous" includes a stretch as Director of Economic Analysis at the Office for National Statistics, focusing on the economic impact of technology and innovation, productivity, and on measuring software and other intangibles in the ‘knowledge economy’. He also represented the UK on OECD’s Working Group on ICT measurement, chairing it from 2005, and served on NSF’s ‘Science of Science’ panel in 2009.

What is Tony talking about this time?  This is the webinar blurb:

So why is it that the banking sector is unable to connect with the main value creating – and fastest growing – form of business investment in developed economies – Intellectual Property? And what can we do about it? 

Is it true that that patents cannot be valued for sale in transparent markets? 

Do they  have intrinsic features to prevent the establishment of secondary markets for innovation?  Or is it  that investors are rather ignorant about patents, brands, software  and are not well informed on their risk and reward structures? 

Technology entrepreneurs seeking to commercialize their patents often may not have  necessary skill sets to communicate the value of IP. Current accounting standards that only partially reflect the value of intangible assets do not make things easier. This leads to market failure, where valuable technology either can’t be exploited, or can’t be scaled up to create competitive global enterprises, while investors miss out on attractive financial opportunities. 

Against this background, this talk discusses how we can develop financial markets which support 21st century knowledge businesses.

To sign up, click here.  The organisers have informed us that they only accept registrations undertaken with professional email addresses (i.e. they can’t accept registrations from Yahoo, Gmail or similar private accounts).  That's a shame, since it means that this blogger, for one, has no means of registering for it. He hopes that this bar will be rescinded.