Solution

Situation

Challenge

A law firm was handling a bankruptcy case concerning a technology start-up in the bio-energy area.

A major asset of the company was the IPR on the waste-to-energy process.

A third party had offered to buy the IPR from the bankruptcy estate. The law-firm urgently needed a valuation to find a sales price for this third party.

TTO carried through the project and concluded that although the IPR might seem very valuable in itself, the risk of not making it to the market due to strong competition combined with heavy demands on resources to mature the technology made the offered price seem quite fair.

The analysis allowed the law firm to proceed swiftly with the deal on behalf of the bankruptcy estate.

In order to assess the value of an IPR, TTO had to establish a framework for understanding how this technology could be brought to market – which markets and when?

Furthermore the likelihood of reaching the market has to be scrutinized in light of the strength of the technology and the competition out there.