At Luther Law, our team of experienced lawyers performs in-depth and thorough IP Due Diligence, ensuring that you have a solid understanding of your intellectual property assets that your business currently owns or is about to acquire.

We have rendered our IP Due Diligence services to companies of various sizes across industries over the years, and our long list of happy clients is the testimony of the quality of work that we do.

What is IP Due Diligence?

Intellectual property (IP) due diligence is an audit carried out to assess the quantity and quality of intellectual assets that are owned or licensed to an individual or a business.

IP due diligence is an essential element of the legal, due diligence process in any kind of corporate transaction that involves the acquisition of a business or a stake in that business. In this day and age, when so much worth is placed on intellectual properties, it only makes sense that IP due diligence has become a must.

It is usually carried out by a prospective buyer on the intellectual assets and liabilities of the target company. This allows you to be confident in your business decisions, that all risks pertaining to the target company’s intangible assets have been thoroughly analyzed.

IP due diligence involves the analysis of the intellectual assets of a business and the risks involved, checking valid intellectual property rights and the scope of their protection, thus, assessing the value of the business’ intangible assets.

Hire professionals you can trust

With the help of professionals who can exercise appropriate IP due diligence, you can weigh the assets, liabilities, and all potential risks that are associated with your transaction. Not only this, but you will also have access to information that can help you determine the extent to which any identified risk or liability can be minimized. Ultimately, this helps you in negotiating a fair value for the transaction in question.

That is what we at Luther Law do. We are here to commit to ensuring that every transaction you make is free of unwanted risks and liabilities in relation to intellectual property. We help you set an agenda for treating relevant IP rights and also assess any risks that may be involved. Our team of lawyers then strategize effectively to solve any issues.

Why conduct IP Due Diligence?

Given how valuable intellectual property assets are to a business, many are willing to go to great lengths of litigation to ensure protection. If you are considering acquiring or obtaining a license under a third party’s intellectual property assets, conducting IP due diligence will help you – 

• Ensure that you have the “freedom to operate” concerning present and future business activities. This helps prevent the waste of valuable resources on business undertakings that may have no option but to be closed as a result of infringing third-party intellectual property assets. There may be cases where you may have to pay significant damages too, and conducting IP due diligence helps prevent this.
• Ensure that any third party that your business is acquiring intellectual property rights from has full entitlement by analyzing the chain of title.

Here are the reasons you may want to conduct IP due diligence on your intellectual properties:

• To understand the quantity and quality of your business’ intellectual property assets so that you can value them accurately. Any third party, such as a prospective buyer, may also want to know the value of your IP assets. An IP due diligence also helps you identify any underutilized IP assets you currently or those that are an unnecessary cost for you.
• To gain a better understanding of the processes that are currently in place to capture and protect the intellectual property assets that you create.
• To ensure that you have all the necessary rights to your intellectual property assets by understanding the chain of title and the process of ownership.
• To find out whether any third party is or could be infringing on your IP rights.

The process

1. First, we discuss with you (the client) what you expect from the business transaction that you are planning to make.
2. After an in-depth discussion, we prepare an IP due diligence checklist and send it across to you.
3. Next, we identify the IP assets of the target company and separate the ones that are relevant to your transaction from the ones that are not. We also highlight how important it is to make a connection between such additional IP rights and the main IP rights.
4. After this, we carry out an in-depth search of the chain of title of the intellectual property assets to determine ownership. At this time, we may find information that may have an impact on the use or sale of these rights. We also find out if there is any litigation or infringement involved.
5. We also verify facts and make sure to confirm all information that is received from the target company. If any discrepancy is identified, we get in touch with the target to clarify issues and ask questions.
6. We also carry out a status check, ownership check, validity check, claim check, and conflict check.
7. After this, we provide a final IP due diligence report on any risks and liabilities involved, along with our recommended strategies to mitigate these.
8. Finally, we document, execute, and then record the Intellectual Property agreements.