Intangible assets are not always easy to articulate, to explain, or define for those unfamiliar with their existance or unaccustomed to recognizing (measuring) their contributions to a company’s value, revenue, and/or sustainability.
Management teams and boards are becoming (more) familiar with and achieving (greater) confidence in strategically managing and overseeing their company’s intangible assets which includes honing skills that help identify, unravel, utilize, position, bundle, and leverage intangibles to enhance and extract value.
Some intellectual property litigators are taking the position that there are potential ‘perils’ if/when company’s assign a specific dollar value to their IP or other intangible assets.
A unique argument about economic espionage by the then University of Calgary researchers is that when two technology producing countries spy on each other it is possible that both will be better off because the technology transfer, implicit in economic espionage, makes the outcomes beneficial to consumers. Insights that lead to better understanding of economic – competitive advantage adversaries who consistently engage in economic espionage.
‘The Intangible Asset Handbook: Maximizing Value From Intangible Assets’ by Weston Anson is one of those rare books that should always be close at hand as a forward looking/thinking reference (reminder) of the often times under-the-radar value of a company’s intangible assets.
U.S. company’s should be required to secure training and engage in best practices to protect (sustain) control, use, ownership, and value of their intellectual property, intangible assets, and proprietary know how, etc., as a requisite to engaging in business transactions in which those assets are in play – part of the deal.