Practice Area
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- Contributing Author
1 Contributions by Isabel Neelands
PRACTICE NOTES
Security over intellectual property under English law: lender-focused practical guide to due diligence, creation, registration and enforcement across patents, trade marks, copyright and designs
Introduction
It is ever more accepted that every enterprise holds and deploys some form of IP. Financiers active in markets with IP-heavy companies are paying closer attention to making sure their collateral captures the worth embodied in that IP. The legal position on taking security over IP remains unsettled, requiring lenders to navigate ambiguity. Moreover, charging IP rights can be expensive to establish and challenging to realise. A funder must begin by pinpointing and assessing the borrower’s IP. It should differentiate categories of IP, for instance rights with proprietary attributes and those arising under contracts. It should also appreciate that a firm’s IP is typically interconnected, such as a patent and the related know-how that gives the patent practical value. Finance lawyers must likewise consider the intrinsic nature of the IP and the setting from which its value derives. A central issue is how the lender could monetise the IP if the security is enforced. This assessment underpins any practical and effective approach to enforcing the security. Resolving that in each situation demands insight into how the borrower conducts its business and the role IP plays within it...
IP
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