A study from the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) shows a low awareness of IP valuation within U.K. businesses. The purpose of the study was to understand why companies do not consider the hidden financial value of their intangible assets—particularly intellectual property—more routinely. To overcome this, the study puts forward the following recommendations:

• Highlight the benefits to businesses of valuing their IP through a series of case studies;

• Extend UK IPO’s finance toolkit to include an open directory of IP valuers and their specialties;

• Introduce a tailored UK IPO outreach program of education and incentives, targeted individually for businesses and intermediaries, to include direct discussions with lenders and investors;

• Conduct further research to gain a more sophisticated understanding of the links between intangible asset valuations and IP strategy, how valuations of the same assets have varied by purpose and/or over time, and a comparison of valuations carried out by buyers versus sellers; and

• Initiate dialogue between UK IPO and accounting and industry bodies on the possible introduction of voluntary IP statements and/or labelling, potentially as part of corporate social responsibility reporting or in annual financial statements.