by Frank Bollmann ECTA IP-Valuation Task Force Member, Vossius & Partner, Germany

The European Commission has recently proposed the European Innovation Act (EIA) to help promote the development, financing, and expansion of innovative ideas in Europe.

The purpose is to overcome two perceived challenges to innovation in Europe. On the one hand, the EU mentions issues with access to financing for innovation and on the other hand, a simplification of R&D procurement.

Especially the first topic is very interesting for the newly founded ECTA IP-Valuation Task Force, so let’s take a closer look.

The EU plans to:

1. create a competence center on IP-backed finance as part of the EUIPO (see also the EUIPO initiative here),
2. develop a voluntary Union-wide framework for IP-valuation and IP-disclosure and
3. create a Union-wide marketplace for IP.

In order to facilitate IP-backed financing, a database of transactions shall be established to collect (on a voluntary basis) data on IP-transactions where IP is used to back financing (see Article 33 of the proposal).

Furthermore, to provide more consistency in IP-valuations, a new certification is proposed on a voluntary basis for IP-valuators to show that the valuator has acquired the necessary skill and competence to carry out IP-valuations for IP-backed financing (see Article 35 of the proposal).

As this is currently a very dynamic area of research and regulation, ECTA and the ECTA IP-Valuation Task Force will stay on top of the issues and will provide further relevant details to ECTA members as those become available.

For further details, you can find the official press release here and the entire proposal here.

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The views expressed are those of our members and not necessarily of ECTA as an association. The content has not been subjected to a verification process, the accuracy of the information contained in the article is responsibility of the author.