LICENSING AND LEVERAGING

Our core specialty, since the commencement of CONSOR and its predecessor firm, TLA, has been the licensing and leveraging of trademarks and brands patents and other IP.  We use leveraging as the ability to maximize the value of IP and intangible assets, using our proprietary licensing techniques and skills.  We provide expertise on the licensing of all types of intellectual assets ranging from celebrities to portfolios of copyrighted material, and from patents and technologies to trademarks and corporate brands.  Our goal is to minimize risk while maximizing value over the long term.  Beyond licensing, leveraging may also take the form of selling, joint ventures, co-branding, or even mergers.

CONSOR LAW FIRM CLIENTS

Clients and their legal counsel turn to us in multiple situations from litigation to deal management, and from the establishment of royalty rates to the implementation of management and control systems.  We have worked for a broad range of law firms including the following:

• Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld
• Baker Hostetler
• Christensen, Glaser, Fink, Jacobs
• Fish & Richardson
• Greenberg Traurig
• Kilpatrick Stockton
• Kirkland & Ellis
• LeBoeuf Lamb
• Loeb & Loeb
• McDermott, Will & Emery
• Miller, Barondess
• O’Melveny & Myers
• Perkins Coie
• Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman
• Ropers, Majeski, Kohn, Bentley
• Venable
• Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati
• Winston & Strawn

LICENSING IN ITS DIFFERENT FORMS

• Trademark licensing includes the use of characters, entertainment properties, sports figures, celebrities and the estates of celebrities, as well as corporate trademarks and brands. 
• Patent and technology licensing ranged from the very simplest mechanical device licensed to an overseas company, to the most complex genetic engineered plant or animal patent.  This kind of licensing also covers trade secrets, technology, and technical know how. 
• Copyright licensing can include granting the right to use literary or artistic material, paintings, photos, other images, interpretive works, designs, and intellectual concepts. 
• Software licensing also is multiple levels, from the shrink wrap software we all use on our PCs to mid-level software licensed to small and medium size companies up to very large operating systems that can cost upwards of $100 million, when designed and installed for very large corporations

A DEFINITION OF LICENSING

In simplest terms, licensing is the granting to others of the right to use intellectual property—whether it is a patent trademark, brand name, title, software design, character, personality, or celebrity image.  The license is typically _____use only on a particular product or service, for a given period of time, in a specific geographic territory.  Organizations enter into license agreements as licensees because they believe that through the use of the licensed property they can create a larger market or more demand for their products and services.  On the other hand, licensors see licensing as an opportunity to gain not only royalty income, but also additional exposure for their property—which can be particularly significant if the licensor itself is using the trademarks, patents or other properties in connection with goods or services that they sell themselves. 

EXTRACTING VALUE BY LEVERAGING CORPORATE BRANDS

From Coca Cola to General Motors and from Weight Watchers to Caterpillar, corporations are increasingly licensing and leveraging their patent portfolios and their brand assets.  A recent illustration of how this intellectual property can be leveraged is that of Jenny Craig.  Over a period of four years, management expanded the scope and range of Jenny Craig’s brand and product line—via internal expansion, licensing, and other inter company deals.  The result of leveraging the Jenny Craig brand resulted in the sale last year of the Jenny Craig brand assets and associated trade secrets databases, customer goodwill, retail network, and to Nestle for more than a half a billion dollars.

ROYALTY RATE DATABASE

The question most often asked is what is an appropriate royalty rate for intellectual property?  The answer is, there is not such thing as a difficult or average royalty rate.  Royalties vary by type of intellectual property, such as patents or trademarks or software and they also vary by type of product and industry such as consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunications.  We have over 13,000 individual royalty rates entered into our proprietary database (the world’s largest) covering trademarks, patents, technology, copyrights, and software.  Some rates are below one half of one percent, and others are as much as 20%.  Trademark and celebrity licensing varies by type of product.  There is substantial variation in royalties from a low of 3.0% to a high of 20.0%--a relative difference of nearly 700% between the low and high royalties.  In sum, there is no such thing as an average or typical royalty rate.

RELATED PUBLICATIONS

Books

Intellectual Property Valuation-Chapter 15

The Intangible Assets Handbook (Chapter 4) 

Valuation of Damages and Expert Witness-Chapter 8

Articles

Licensing Silent Crisis

Branding Is Not Enough in the Licensing Industry