ABSTRACT
Intellectual property is about patents, trademarks and other rights to designs and inventions. It has four strands:
Identification of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in a business.
Ownership of those rights. As the IPR necessary to carry on the business have to be transferred when the target is sold, a central concern of intellectual property due diligence is to establish that the seller owns the rights it is selling.
Validity. Once transferred, are those IPRs sufficient to protect the acquired company from any claims that its activities are infringing the intellectual property rights of others?
Uniqueness/sufficiency. Alongside the three more legal investigations outlined above, commercially a buyer would be wise to satisfy itself that the intellectual property it is buying is in fact the world-beater it thinks it is. In other words, are those IPRs sufficient to give a competitive edge?
