Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Towards a Strategy of Valuing Patents as Intellectual Capital

Patents are a major force in the world economy, and one of only a few metrics commonly employed to gauge the tides of new ideas and innovation that are driving our economy. Even with the present declining rates of R&D investment, leading nations spend over $1 billion dollars each day generating intellectual property.

Branding Diamonds

During the 1990s, De Beers Consolidated Mines began the then seemingly unusual practice of “Branding” its diamonds. It began inscribing a small Brand Mark on its stones to differentiate its products within the commodity marketplace, and to ensure their worth against the inexorable declining value of non-oil commodities. The growing success of Brands, Branding and the strategies of Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Marketing are widely recognized within the global business community.

Brand Valuation Basics

Since the late 1990s, the need to establish dollar valuations for Intellectual Capital Assets has driven the development of a handful of brand valuation methods. Essentially, there are four approaches to valuing a Brand, and one or more of them may be applicable in any individual instance.

Branding Commodity Products

Producers of raw materials and commodity products often overlook the opportunity to increase their gross margins, create consumer demand for their specific items(s), and build valuable Brand Equity by employing the branding practices made successful by consumer packaged goods enterprises.

Non-Financial Performance Measurements

We are all well-acquainted with the traditional measures of enterprise performance. But today, under the influence of globalization, environmental crises, and widespread ethical breakdown there is pressure to identify and report new, non-traditional, and “non-financial” measures of performance to get at newly recognized dimensions of enterprise value, success, and significance. These new demands emerge from a belief that social, environmental, ethical, and geopolitical factors materially impact the ability of a company or enterprise to perform favorably.

Brand Development

Smaller companies, with local and regional markets, often accept the dominance of large, national brands in their marketplace. All too often they assume that good branding and targeted marketing is either too complex or too expensive to be within their reach.

The New Brand Strategy at Philip Morris

Philip Morris Companies have spent over $200 million in corporate-image advertising over the last two years, designed to improve the image of “Philip Morris.” Nevertheless, “Philip Morris” is still viewed as a tobacco company.