Areas of Practice

Trademark

Used by businesses and organizations of all types, trademarks are used to build a brand around which economic activity grows. A trademark or service mark can include any words, names, symbols, illustrations, alone or in combination. Ultimately, theses symbols are meant to create and reinforce the identity of the organization, and to differentiate the goods/services it provides from those of others.

Our valuation services help clients decide on how much to invest in a trademark, how much to pay to acquire an existing one, what a market royalty rate should be for a license to use it.

Our expert testimony services help to assess the monetary damages trademark owners are entitled to (or liable for) in situations of trademark infringement.

PUBLICITY RIGHTS

The value of the commercial use of a well-known person’s name, image, and likeness has attracted both a formal licensing and endorsement industry, and an infringing practice among some marketers.

Over the years, we have helped celebrities and their estates establish and enforce the economic value of their association with commercial brands, both for licensing negotiations, tax return preparation, and for enforcement actions through litigation.

COPYRIGHT

With the ultimate goal of encouraging the creation of art and culture , Copyright is a set of rights granted to authors, artists and creators mainly focused on the exclusive right to make and sell copies of their works, the right to create derivative works, and the right to perform or display their works publicly. By controlling these uses, and regulating the licensing of such rights, creators can reap the benefit of the social value of their works.

Our valuation services help clients decide on the intricacies of licensing their rights to artwork, sound recordings, etc. based on economic principles and the realities of business and markets. Setting appropriate royalty rates for licensing is a particular concern.

As far as expert testimony services are concerned, the monetary damages copyright holders are entitled to (or liable for) in situations of infringement, including a rational basis for statutory remedies.

TRADE SECRETS

While patents grant exclusive rights in exchange for sufficient disclosure of innovations, in many business situations a strategic advantage may be available from keeping the innovation or method secret.

Enforcement of these trade secrets depends on both the procedures implemented to guard the secrecy and non-disclosure, and the economic value of the exclusive knowledge of the secret. Assessing this economic value, and quantifying any losses from the unauthorized dissemination of protectable trade secrets are economic consulting services we provide.

PATENT

A patent is only the temporary right to exclude others from a specific market delimited by a written description of an innovation. It does not represent the right to practice an invention, or title to a royalty income stream; several factors are co-determinants of the economic value of the opportunity the patent represents. The economic valuation of patents considers these temporary rights as a whole, in a business context.

Patent infringement litigation, on the other hand, entails establishing the most likely attribution of value to the offending practice; whether that is a reasonable royalty that would have been negotiated beforehand, or the patentee’s profits lost to the infringing activity of a competitor.

DIGITAL INTANGIBLE ASSEtS

The growth of the internet, the ubiquity of software, and the reliance on technology are so fast-developing that laws, business customs, and practices tend to lag behind. Moreover, the application of these digital assets tend to generate substantial amounts of economically-valuable data.

Innovative economic analysis, including data science and machine learning techniques are applied in our practice to supplement the econometric techniques conventionally applied.

In our practice, we have often implemented these technical skills to assess values and potential economic damages in various contexts.