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Reinterpreting Patent Valuation and Evaluation: The Tricky World of Nanotechnology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Luca Escoffier
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Extract

In this report, the author, an IP scholar and entrepreneur, analyses how nanotechnology will pervade all industries and therefore how important it is to find a proper method to valuate and especially evaluate nanotechnology-related inventions. Attaching a value or evaluating a technology is a fundamental task nowadays, especially when innovations are supposed to be licensed or assigned. The report focuses on the different valuation and evaluation techniques professionals usually employ, and then delves into the world of nanotechnology. It tries to develop a novel method that takes environmental and health-related issues into due consideration when attaching a value or evaluating a technology in the nano world. The novel tool envisioned in the article is particularly suitable for nanotech innovations, but it can be used for the evaluation of other technologies and patents as well. The innovative idea consists of introducing the concept of Present Value After Evaluation, which takes qualitative variables into consideration and provides a figure for the analyzed technology or patent. This method and the accompanying tool are perfectly suited for evaluation purposes when environmental and human safety concerns are at stake, because they take these variables into consideration and throughout technology's life cycle.

Type
Reports
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 67 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

1 Definition provided by the website of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, available on the Internet at <http://www.nano.gov/html/facts/whatIsNano.html> (last accessed on 23 January 2011).

2 There are 4,952 inventoried and on sale books on Amazon.com concerning Nanotechnology as of January 11, 2011. At any rate, two must-have books to understand what the future of nanotechnology is likely to be are Kurzweil, Ray, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Penguin Books, 2006)Google Scholar; and Drexler, Eric K., Engines of Creation The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (New York: Anchor Books, 1986)Google Scholar.

3 At present, there are already several reports and articles concerning the potential and assessed risks for the environment and humans related to the employment of nanotechnology. For a comparative review, please see Trudy E. Bell, Understanding Risk Assessment of Nanotechnology, available on the Internet at <http://www.nano.gov/Understanding_Risk_Assessment.pdf> (last accessed on 9 January 2011), and the Cordis webpage about safety aspects, available on the Internet at <http://cordis.europa.eu/nanotechnology/src/safety.htm> (last accessed on 18 January 2011).

4 See the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, Consumer Products Inventory, available on the Internet at <http://www.nanotechproject.org/inventories/consumer> (last accessed on 18 January 2011).

5 See Luca Escoffier, Patentability of Nanotechnology Innovations: A Closer Look at their Figures and Inventiveness, Comparative IP Academic Workshop Working Paper No. 1, pp. 1–27, 2009, available on the Internet at <http://www.law.washington.edu/Casrip/WWIP/Papers/2009/Patentability%20of%20Nanotechnology%20Innovations%20-%20a%20Closer%20Look%20at%20their%20Figures%20and%20Inventiveness.pdf> (last accessed on 18 January 2011).

6 See, for example, Raj Bawa, “Nanotechnology Patenting in the US”, 1 Nanotech. L. & Bus. 31 (2004), and Robert M. Hansen, Survey of Nanotechnology Patent Trends, presentation available on the Internet at <http://www.foley.com/files/tbl_s31Publications/FileUpload137/1576/nano_patent_trends.pdf> (last accessed on 18 January 2011).

7 See supra note 5, at p. 11.

8 For an overview of patent valuation practices, see Martin A. Bauder, Frauke Rüether, Still A Long Way To Value-Based Patent Valuation – The Patent Valuation Practices Of Europe's Top 500, Les Nouvelles, June 2009, available on the Internet at <http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/sme/en/wipo_insme_smes_ge_10/wipo_insme_smes_ge_10_ref_theme06_01.pdf> (last accessed on 18 January 2011).

9 Amount obtained using the inflation calculator available on the Internet at <http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl> (last accessed on 18 January 2011). The CPI inflation calculator uses the average Consumer Price Index for a given calendar year.

10 For an overview of patent evaluation, see the EPO webpage, Patent Portfolio Management and Patent Evaluation, available on the Internet at <http://www.epo.org/patents/patent-information/business/valuation/faq.html> (last accessed on 18 January 2011).

11 The author is the copyright holder of the PVAE tool, which is also used by Usque Ad Sidera LLC for its evaluation services. Starting January 2011, the University of Trieste will be the exclusive user of the tool for its technologies for an evaluation period (see Tables 1, 2, 3).