Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello,

My company, Multi Axis Games, currently has two investor groups interested in participating in a syndicated investment with us once a lead investor comes forward. This is both encouraging and problematic. It leaves us trying to hunt up additional investors to join the syndicate and for a good lead investor candidate.

Currently we are looking into getting our intellectual property valued so as to be in a better bargaining position and to help investors understand the worth of the company without having to understand the massively multi-player online video game market (which almost no one over the age of 35 can).

Does anyone have any expertise in the area of valuing and protecting intellectual property which might assist us?

Thank you,



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Margaret Staples

www.multiaxisgames.com

remember to include patent validity, if any.

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James Lindon, Ph.D. Patent Attorney
Lindon & Lindon, LLC
Cleveland, Ohio
Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, Pharmacy Law, Litigation
[this is not legal advice - provided for discussion only]
Intellectual Property for the Individual and Small Business: Identify, Protect, Enforce, Defend.
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
http://www.LindonLaw.com

James (or anybody), would you happen to have a summary definition of "intellectual property?"

Intellectual Property:

In law, intellectual property (IP) is an umbrella term for various legal entitlements which attach to certain names, written and recorded media, and inventions. The holders of these legal entitlements may exercise various exclusive rights in relation to the subject matter of the IP. The adjective "intellectual" reflects the fact that this term concerns a process of the mind. The noun "property" implies that ideation is analogous to the construction of tangible objects. Consequently, this term is controversial.

Intellectual property laws and enforcement vary widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. There are inter-governmental efforts to harmonise them through international treaties such as the 1994 World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), while other treaties may facilitate registration in more than one jurisdiction at a time. Disagreements over medical and software patents and the severity of copyright enforcement have so far prevented consensus on a cohesive international system.

...First two paragraphs of the definition offered by wikipedia.org

I find it to be a reasonable and concise definition.



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Margaret Staples

www.multiaxisgames.com

Ah...excellent help, Margaret. I`ve been curious in the past. I mean, yeah, we can pretty much get the idea, but until this topic post, I`d never really seen the specific legalese. I can see why it`d be a bit controversial, though.

Hello Craig,

I`m glad you found my post helpful.  IP is a big issue, especially in the digital entertainment industry as designs for digital entertainment can be considered to have either the value of the final product minus the cost of development, or they can by considered worthless (or even non-existent as a valuable commodity). 

For innovators, like myself and the rest of the MxG team, IP is a huge issue.  We have spent the energy to create innovative and feasible designs for the MMO market, yet struggle to find financial institutions or investors who will regard these as company assets.  At the same time, we have to spend the energy protecting our IP as existing development companies would require nothing more than our design document in order to create a mimic of our product which they could rush to market.

One of the reasons that innovation and creativity are so difficult to come by in video game production is because of this struggle with IP.  With innovation and creativity being simultaneously difficult to protect and difficult to exchange for the financial means to develop it into a product, those with new ideas are driven from the market in mass each year.

As we have seen with movies in the past, once the creativity has been driven from a form of entertainment it is only a matter of time before "ticket" sales suffer and those with capital invested in the industry will have to regroup.  We are hoping that a few forward thinking investors will help us to be the "Hershey" of the digital/economic "dust bowl".



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Margaret Staples

www.multiaxisgames.com