Inngot

📢 Exciting News from Inngot and NatWest Group - a brand new IP-backed lending product 👏 NatWest Group has launched a new lending proposition, developed with Inngot, to enable high growth IP-rich businesses leverage the value of their Intellectual Property (IP) to support borrowing.   What makes the new NatWest Group High Growth IP Finance product unique is the way that the bank is taking the IP value into account as security for the loan. Inngot's range of IP evaluation tools, now including a new collateral suitability checking tool, is powering NatWest Group’s ability to deliver IP-backed loans at scale. See below 👇 📈 NatWest launches Intellectual Property-based lending to fuel high growth businesses   NatWest Group has launched a new lending proposition for high growth businesses to enable them to lever off the value of their Intellectual Property (IP).   High growth businesses generally own few tangible assets, but can be rich in IP and intangible assets. These businesses can find it difficult to use their assets as collateral to secure growth funding, especially when compared with firms holding more conventional assets. This has led to a large growth funding gap for fast-growing, asset light businesses which is estimated to be as much as £15 billion annually.   In response, NatWest Group is evolving its high growth lending offer to support eligible IP-rich businesses to unlock their full potential. While the bank will always initially assess loan applications to establish whether the customer meets the criteria for standard lending options, if the bank cannot meet a high growth business’ borrowing needs through conventional security criteria, it will consider whether it could raise funding by using their qualifying IP assets as collateral. The bank will use valuations provided by the specialist IP evaluation company Inngot to identify and evaluate relevant assets which could be taken as security for loans... Andy Gray, Managing Director of Commercial Mid-Market at NatWest Group, said:   “As the UK’s leading business bank, we are delighted to have joined forces with Inngot, to provide a truly innovative and progressive proposition for high growth SMEs and scale-up businesses. Many of these businesses struggle to access debt funding when they need it without having to dilute equity. This new offering will allow these firms to go further and faster in their growth journey.” Martin Brassell, CEO of Inngot, said: “With this new proposition,  NatWest is recognising that IP is a vital component of value for growth companies that must be considered properly in lending decisions. Many entrepreneurs will welcome NatWest’s emphasis on a business’s intangibles, which have often gone ignored, rather than relying on personal or tangible assets. There is massive potential to transform the prospects of some of our most exciting firms by enabling them to leverage the things that really drive their success.” Link: https://shorturl.at/xCRZ7

Further evidence of the spread of IP-backed finance as Nigeria launches pilot program The Nigerian Government’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the establishment of a Creative Economy Development Fund (CEDF) and the rollout of an Intellectual Property (IP) Monetisation Pilot, a significant development for the country’s SMEs. The CEDF’s primary function will be to offer financial support to creatives through various funding channels, said the Minister of Art, Culture, and the Creative Economy, Barrister Hannatu Musa Musawa. She also explained that several ministries and agencies, including the Ministries of Justice, Finance, Industry, Trade and Investment, the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Nigerian Copyright Commission are working together to oversee both the setting up of the CEDF and the implementation of the IP Monetisation pilot. Minister Musawa added: “The CEDF, as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), will provide funding to creatives through various financial instruments, including debt, quasi-equity, and equity. The fund will also develop a transformative model for the securitization and collateralization of IP assets, enabling Nigerian creatives to leverage their IP as viable assets for securing financing. The CEDF aims to democratize access to finance by lowering access barriers and offering innovative solutions not reliant on traditional collateral.” She concluded: “The CEDF’s success will be measured by its ability to create a robust Intellectual Property asset base, enable IP collateralization for financing, enhance access to finance through IP securitization, and develop IP valuation standards. Additionally, it will foster a vibrant creative business environment, generate new revenue streams through IP, promote industry best practices and build investor confidence and trust.” https://bit.ly/3YHdp4I

🧑🔬 European universities drive patents, innovation and spinoff SMEs👨🔬 European universities are behind more than 10% of all patent applications filed at the European Patent Office from within Europe, according to the latest study from the EPO. This is up from around 6% in 2000. The study, from the EPO’s Observatory on Patents and Technology in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (Fraunhofer ISI), is based on data from over 1,200 universities and their Knowledge Transfer Offices (KTOs) over 20 years (2000 to 2020). “Europe has a longstanding tradition of academic excellence, but we sometimes struggle to turn research into commercial success,” said EPO President, António Campinos. “This study sheds light on academic inventiveness across Europe to further inform policies and strategies. By leveraging patents through licensing, collaboration or spin-outs, universities can amplify their impact, driving both market and social value.” However, Campinos  warns, “as the recent Draghi report underscores, there is still significant work to be done to achieve a single market for research and technology in Europe, since our study reveals that 10% of startups with academic patents now move to the US”. The study investigated “academic patents”, applications originating at universities or their KTOs, with one or more named inventors who are academic researchers. Such applications can either be filed in the name of the university itself and/or their KTO (“direct academic patents”); or be filed in the name of the researcher(s), their spin-out, their sponsor or some other company (“indirect academic patents”). The proportion of direct academic patents has risen from 20% in 2000 to 45% in 2019. However, the different regulations with regards to ownership and management of IP at the national as well as university level leads to wide variations in how often a university itself is the applicant. This in turn leads to variations in the strategies and partners chosen to bring to market innovations from university labs. The landscape is dominated by a handful of patent-active universities (5%), which between them are responsible for half of all academic patents submitted to the EPO. These institutions including, for example, the University of Grenoble Alpes, Technical University of Munich, University of Oxford, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, University of Copenhagen, and Polytechnic University of Milan, among others. A link to the full report is on the EPO website here: https://lnkd.in/dwn8ehpA

🦹 More than 86 million fake items, street value €2 billion, seized in Europe in 2022, EUIPO and Europol report 🦹 A recent report by the EUIPO - European Union Intellectual Property Office and the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) highlights the extent and danger of intellectual property (IP) crime in Europe. The two bodies found that “organised crime networks are taking advantage of consumer demand for low-cost products, leading to a surge in counterfeit goods across the EU. In 2022, authorities seized over 86 million fake items, valued at more than €2 billion. From video games and toys to packaging materials, cigarettes and even pharmaceuticals, counterfeit products have become a widespread issue that stretches across a variety of sectors.” The report, Uncovering the Ecosystem of Intellectual Property Crime: A Focus on Enablers, reveals how, through the continuous flood of counterfeit goods in the European market, consumers unknowingly put their health, safety and the economy at risk. The report says criminals are exploiting legal loopholes, producing items outside the EU and adding logos and packaging within EU borders to avoid detection. Counterfeiters are also increasingly using online platforms and social media to reach even more consumers, not only selling fake goods but also stealing sensitive payment information through fake websites. In one case, over one million counterfeit hormonal pills were seized from a network that used social media influencers to promote the illegal products. In others, investigations led to the discovery of counterfeit prosciutto ham with fake ‘Made in Italy’ labels and 260,000 litres of fake olive oil unfit for consumption, posing a significant threat to both consumer health and international trade. In another case, 400,000 counterfeit automotive parts were seized. Companies need to make sure that their IP and intangibles are properly protected, and be alert to the threat of counterfeiters potentially faking their products. The full report can be found here: https://lnkd.in/eYjCyTMR

Storm in a soup bowl? UK restaurant chain Pho – which specialises in phở , the Vietnamese broth dish – has said it is surrendering its trade mark for the word after a campaign by a Vietnamese TikTok influencer led to a social media outcry. Pho, the UK chain, posted a response on X (formerly Twitter) in mid-October where it stressed that its TM relates to the brand identity and the logo, and that it is not suing Vietnamese businesses in the UK. The company also pointed out that “more than 50 other businesses in the UK currently also hold a trade mark that relates to the word pho.” However, according to a report in the Daily Mail a week later, the company has now filed a request with the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to surrender its TM on the word ‘pho’. The dispute highlights the fact that in an increasingly globalised IP world, companies should be careful when trying to trade mark descriptive words. In the UK, the rules on trade marks say that a potential trade mark cannot: describe the goods or services it will relate to, for example the word ‘cotton’ cannot be a trade mark for a cotton textile company. With pho, the dish, the point is that it is purely descriptive of what the product or service is – and that is not allowed for trade marks. No company can own the rights to a descriptive word in this way. So could the company Pho, with their word mark, potentially stop other Vietnamese restaurants using the word 'pho' to sell pho? This would be an unfair restraint of trade as, as stated above, pho is descriptive of the dish sold and it could have been challenged in court if they had tried to enforce their ‘rights’. But the issue would really only affect companies selling pho (the Vietnamese dish) and using the word pho in their company name – or perhaps even on their menus. If people were selling something else (from handbags to cars to IT services) and calling themselves Pho, there wouldn't be an issue. However, Pho the company appears to have admitted that it wasn’t actually using its word TM to restrict other sellers of pho – in which case, there is little point them keeping it. What is more important to Pho is its stylised element or logo, which it has kept. https://lnkd.in/eidsaaKP

Just dropping this in here - Elizabeth Ward of UK's Virtuoso Legal - Intellectual Property Specialists just interviewed Inngot CEO Martin Brassell for her VIP Podcast -- and has now written about IP-backed finance in the UK newspaper The Independent. See her piece here: https://lnkd.in/e3yhXH9G

🎺 Martin Brassell, CEO of Inngot, has contributed a thought leadership piece on IP valuation to Intellectual Asset Management’s first ever Guide to Monetisation. Martin’s article, entitled Monetising Intangibles: The Value Question, can be found here: https://lnkd.in/dFnXb2QJ Drawing on more than 15 years of experience of advising companies, banks, investors, insurers and policy makers across Europe and Asia on ways to support businesses and economic growth by unlocking IP value, Martin explains the opportunities and challenges IP valuations offers and takes readers through the pros and cons of the main valuation methods. As he says, IP valuation has become crucial to modern business practices and economies because “where value used to be associated with producing more, it is now dependent on knowing more.”

📢 An exciting event with Inngot CEO Martin Brassell talking #IP #valuation and #financing at GITEX GLOBAL Largest Tech & Startup Show in the World in Dubai.

💥 Boom. We are on fire - three in a row. Intellectual Property loans from NatWest. #highgrowth #tech #ip #innovation #scaleup #jobcreation

🌟 250,000 reasons why it’s a great day at Hike 🌟 We’re thrilled to share that we’ve secured a £250,000 IP-backed loan from NatWest! 🎉 This isn’t just any old loan — it’s a huge validation of the Hike platform and what we’ve built here at Hike SEO. We’ll be using the funds to further invest in our AI-powered features, making SEO even easier for small business owners and non-SEO experts 💻✨ Plus, we’re growing our Hike family by 30% and we’ve got some really great roles open already, including a growth marketing manager and a visual content manager to help us share even more SEO tips & tricks with businesses across the globe. 🚀 A massive thank you to NatWest, especially senior relationship manager Chris Garnett, along with Martin Brassell, and the amazing team at Inngot for believing in us and making this possible! Check out the video below to hear from Co-founders Kieran Headley & Andrew Allen directly on how we’re shaking up the SEO world! 🎥👇 #HikeSEO #SmallBusinessGrowth #SEO #Innovation #AI #TechForGood