The Economonic Valuation of PATents project

The EVPAT Project

The Economic Evaluation of Patents (EVPAT) is a research project of the Department of Management of the University of Bologna, funded by the European Investment Bank, under the EIBURS- University Research Sponsorship Programme.

The main objectives of the evpat project are to improve and validate analytic models for the assessment of the economic value of patents. The theme of patent valuation is particularly relevant given the growing importance of patents not only for firm performance, but also for the allocation of resources by financial investors to innovation activities and the development of markets for technologies. Nevertheless, in spite of the growing awareness on the role technological innovation, contributions on this issue are still several specific problems:

lack of generally accepted methodologies for the valuation of innovation and intellectual property rights;
difficulty to predict the relationship between investments in innovation, patents and firm economic performance, given that the expected results from innovation activities are subject to a very high degree of uncertainty;
limited value relevance of financial reporting on intangible assets

These shortcomings are critical to several important decisions of managers and financial investors, such as patent licensing, venture capital financing, IPO valuation, access to public equity markets to finance innovation projects. Addressing these issues would then be important both for practical evaluation problems within patent-related transactions among firms and for policy analysis concerning the development of the markets for technology and the support of financial markets to innovation processes. The evpat project is articulated in two main activities, which are deeply interrelated: research activities and training and diffusion activities.

The research activities investigate the issue of patent valuation at different levels of analysis and in different stages of firm life cycle.
The training and diffusion activities aim to disclose the research results and raise awareness on the importance of the protection and exploitation of intellectual property rights.

The project is coordinated by Prof. Federico Munari (Department of Management, University of Bologna) and Prof. Raffaele Oriani (LUISS Guido Carli University), with the support of Serena Morricone (Ph.D. Student, Department of Management, University of Bologna).