As an intellectual property appraisal, patent assets appraisal is a kind of intangible assets appraisal. As a special asset appraisal, it has its own characteristics, such as fairness, consultation and scientificity. Due to the particularity of intangible assets evaluation, it has its own differences. In the process of patent creation, a lot of physical and chemical labor and mental labor need to be invested. The cost input is not directly proportional to its economic benefits, and the benefits created by the use of patent rights are also very unstable, which brings many difficulties to the measurement of the value of patent assets. However, there are two characteristics that must be paid attention to in the evaluation: the evaluation is time-sensitive, and the closer the transaction time of general patent assets is to its evaluation time, the closer the transaction price is to the evaluation value; The evaluation price is for reference only, which provides investors with a basic price of the transaction, rather than the accurate pricing of the transaction assets.
Application of patent assets evaluation
1,1The new accounting system implemented in July, 1993 listed intangible assets as special accounting subjects, and made provisions on the recognition and measurement of intangible assets; On July 23rd, 20001year, the Ministry of Finance issued the Assets Appraisal Criteria-Intangible Assets, in which the identifiable intangible assets include the appraisal of intellectual property rights such as patents, know-how, trademarks and franchise rights. After that, after the patent assets are evaluated, they are recorded according to the price confirmed by the evaluation or the price agreed in the contract, which is guaranteed by the system. Quantifying the intangible assets of enterprises, especially intellectual property rights (mainly represented by patent rights), plays an extremely important role in promoting enterprises to increase investment in research and development, seize the commanding heights of technology and improve operating efficiency under the conditions of market economy. At present, general patent assets appraisal is used for the following two purposes. First, according to the relevant provisions of the tax law and financial regulations, the purpose of asset appraisal is to amortize the costs and expenses of intangible assets; The second is the asset evaluation for the purpose of patent asset transfer and investment. In fact, the purpose of these two evaluations can be subdivided into many sub-items: enterprise restructuring and acquisition and pre-joint venture value evaluation; Direct transfer and purchase in intellectual property trade; Obtain capital composition through debt financing; Enterprise bankruptcy liquidation or dissolution; Determine the reasonable utilization rate of intellectual property license.
The role of patent retrieval in patent assets evaluation
Determine the legal status of patent assets
Patent right, as a monopoly right endowed by law, has time and geographical limitations and is protected by law within the prescribed time limit and geographical scope. This kind of legal protection is not only reflected in whether there is a patent certificate, but also in the comprehensive search of relevant patent documents such as patent announcements issued by the national patent authorities, so as to determine the protection scope of claims in patent assets, the remaining protection time of patents, the transfer of patent relations and other related legal status. Finding and clarifying the legal status of patent assets to be traded is the first step to make a correct and reasonable evaluation of patent assets.
Analysis of technical connotation of patent assets
After confirming the legal status of patent assets, it is a very important step to analyze the technical connotation of patent technology and make a comprehensive and accurate technical evaluation. Patent technology can be traded, transferred, invested and invested as an asset because the technical scheme has outstanding substantive characteristics and remarkable progress in products or production methods, which can save production costs, improve labor productivity or improve product quality. For enterprises, if they invest the same amount of labor as before, they can create more value than before and bring excess economic returns to enterprises. The premise of this high return between input and output is the novelty and creativity of patented technology, and to what extent it is irreplaceable. The more original the invention is, the greater the role it plays in promoting social progress and the more considerable the economic benefits it can obtain. Certified asset appraisers in appraisal institutions generally have excellent financial background, but it is difficult to grasp the technical connotation of patented assets. It is necessary to have a special institution to comprehensively sort out and screen the existing technologies and scientifically and reasonably analyze the advanced nature of patented technologies.
Collect market and technical information related to patent assets
Advanced patented technology may not get considerable economic returns from the market. At the end of 1990s, Iridium Company of the United States developed Iridium system and put it into commercial operation relying on patented technology in the field of satellite communication, but it went bankrupt in less than two years. Nokia relies on mobile phone public network, but today it has developed into a multinational giant in the field of mobile communication. The satellite communication telephone flying in the sky has not defeated the mobile network on the ground, because it also involves various complicated factors such as market acceptance, product cost, people's cognitive ability and the maintenance level of existing technology. Therefore, in the evaluation of patent assets, in addition to analyzing the technological advancement of patented technology, we should also retrieve and collect relevant information and materials such as the application scope, market demand, market prospect and market life of patented products, the development of related industrial policies, macroeconomics, competition of similar products, and profitability of patented products.
Practical significance of patent retrieval in patent assets evaluation
Clarify the practicality and enforceability of patented technology.
In the process of patent application, the examiner makes a judgment on whether to grant the patent right based on the examination of the three characteristics of the patent (practicality, novelty and creativity). For novelty and creativity, the review guide has clear standards and is easy to judge; As for the actual investigation, as long as it is feasible in theory and does not violate the laws of nature, the examiner will not be too harsh. However, for the evaluation of patent assets, the realizable degree of patent technology in production is very important, because only the patent technology that is feasible in theory and design drawings can not bring any return to investors. In patent search, if it is found that there are few related patent applications for a patented technology to be evaluated, then the feasibility of this "original" patented technology in production deserves careful consideration. When implementing a patented technology, we can't look at this invention in isolation. Whether this invention belongs to a subordinate invention, that is, whether there are other inventions behind this patented technology, needs to be understood through patent search. If a patent is invented and created on the basis of others, the effective implementation of this patent must first be authorized by the invention mentioned in the preceding paragraph, which is also an important factor that must be considered in evaluating patent assets.
Ensure the stability of patented technology
For a technology with three characteristics of patent, it is the most basic requirement that the patent application can be authorized. However, in order to protect technical secrets, applicants often only make limited technical disclosure, and expect to obtain as wide a protection scope as possible. Even if this patent is granted because of the examiner's level, its patentability is unstable. Anyone can request the Patent Reexamination Board to declare the patent right invalid. If there is a defect of insufficient technology disclosure, then the patent will be invalid. Patent retrieval can strictly check patent claims and point out those claims that are too broad to be supported by specifications, laying a good foundation for technical evaluation of patent assets and ensuring investors' investment rights and interests.
Provide reliable evaluation basis for asset appraisers.
At present, the asset appraiser's evaluation of patent technology is mainly based on the patent-related information provided by the client, but the client sometimes does not provide comprehensive and true information for his own benefit; When it is difficult for asset appraisers to obtain reliable patent assets appraisal materials due to the level or conditions, it is easy to misjudge or misjudge, causing losses to investors or state-owned assets. Professional institutions carry out patent search with comprehensive information and reliable results, which is beneficial for asset appraisers to make scientific and reasonable evaluation conclusions.
In the evaluation of patent assets
Retrieve the content of the policy
Search strategy
To evaluate the patent assets of a patented technology, firstly, the basic retrieval elements (keywords and classification numbers) are determined by analyzing the claims, and then the retrieval formula is constructed from the basic retrieval elements, and then the novelty and creativity of the patent are searched. In the general patent novelty retrieval, the retrieval can be terminated when the literature that affects novelty or creativity is found. Patent retrieval in patent assets evaluation needs to collect all the documents that affect novelty or creativity as much as possible in order to accurately grasp the technical connotation of the evaluated patent; If the general patent novelty search does not find any literature that affects novelty or creativity, only 23 closest existing technologies are provided to analyze and judge patent novelty and creativity. In the patent retrieval of patent assets evaluation, it is necessary to comprehensively collect, sort out and classify relevant patent documents and background information, and make a certain patent analysis, from which we can get the development trend of technology and make a scientific and reasonable judgment on the technological advancement of the evaluated patent. In short, the patent retrieval strategy in patent assets evaluation is to simply retrieve the legal status of the patent, confirm the invention characteristics of the patent, and then comprehensively retrieve the relevant patents from the aspect of invention characteristics, and analyze the advanced and irreplaceable nature of the patent technology; Then, a special search is carried out around the background information related to the patented technology to collect all kinds of relevant information such as the application scope, market demand, customer group and industrial development of the patented technology being evaluated.
Search content
In the evaluation of patent assets, patents are usually retrieved to determine their authenticity, legality, effectiveness and advancement, and to compare the technical differences between related patents. Based on the above reasons, patent retrieval mainly involves the following four contents.
(1) legal status retrieval
The purpose of legal status retrieval is to determine the authenticity, legality and validity of a patent, and authenticity refers to whether a patent exists; Legality usually refers to whether the patent is held by the legal holder, and validity refers to whether the patent is valid at present. When searching for a patent, the first thing to do is to search for the legal status. Only when the patent is true, legal and effective, it is necessary to carry out subsequent retrieval. Generally, the patent number is used as the search condition to search the legal status, and the search results include the grant, transfer, termination and restoration of the patent right, as well as the change of the name, nationality and address of the patentee. If the corresponding patent can be retrieved after inputting the patent number, which proves that the patent is true, then we can know whether the patent is effective through the information of grant, termination and recovery of the patent right; Through the transfer of the patent right and the change of the name of the patentee, we can know whether the current patentee of the patent is the legal holder.
② Advanced retrieval
The purpose of advanced retrieval is to determine whether the patent has novelty and creativity as stipulated in the patent law, which is usually called advanced retrieval. "Novelty" as stipulated in Article 22 of the Patent Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) means that no identical invention or utility model has been published in publications at home and abroad before the filing date, publicly used in China or known to the public in other ways, and no identical invention or utility model has been applied to the patent administration department of the State Council by others and recorded in the patent application documents published after the filing date. Creativity means that compared with the prior art before the filing date, the invention has outstanding substantive features and remarkable progress, and the utility model has substantive features and progress. " The range of retrieval data includes patent literature and non-patent literature (such as periodicals and papers) published all over the world. Commonly used retrieval databases include patent literature databases such as China Patent Literature Database, World Patent Index Database (WPI Database), Japanese Patent English Abstract Database (PAJ), and non-patent literature databases such as HowNet, Wan Fang Data and CNKI. When searching, we should first fully understand the technical scheme of the patent and extract the retrieval elements for retrieval. The retrieval elements are mainly classification numbers and keywords (including synonyms and synonyms). If necessary, we will also use the names of the applicant and the inventor to search. Then, we will use retrieval elements to detect related documents in the database. Finally, we will compare and analyze the technology in the selected literature with the patented technology to judge whether the patented technology is novel and creative. Novelty and creative judgment are important factors affecting the results of asset appraisal.
③ Patent subject retrieval and technical analysis.
In general patent novelty retrieval, as long as the searcher finds one or several related documents that can be used to evaluate the novelty or creativity of patent claims, the retrieval can be terminated, and it is impossible for the client to obtain all the documents related to patent technology. In the evaluation of patent assets, patent special retrieval not only needs to obtain the relevant patent documents and non-patent documents published in the world, but also needs to collect the background technical information of the patent, such as the basic situation of the patent holding enterprise, the market capacity of the patented product, the fierce competition and so on. Patent analysis is to locate the development level of patent technology in the same field and predict the speed and development trend of technology update in the same field on the basis of relevant patent technology and technical background information collected. This work requires a large number of retrieval data and a deep understanding of the technical development in this field, and requires retrieval personnel to have high professional quality and keen market insight.