Patents as security for loans

In November 2004, the European Patent Office held a workshop on the modifications that result from the introduction of proposals for reforming the Baseler equity capital agreement of 1988 to make the capital demands of the banks more dependent on economic risks than has previously been the case. In the determination of the equity capital ratio, this new regulation calls for a number of approaches for the measurement of the credit risk and the operational risk and at the same time opens up the possibility of including further, not previously considered securities to which also patents could be counted to the extent that their economic importance can be demonstrated. This offers small, technologically oriented firms possibilities to improve their credit worthiness. In two presentations documented here, Guido von Scheffer and Dirk Loop, IP Bewertungs AG, Hamburg, and Dr. Holger Himmel and Sven Mussler, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Frankfurt am Main, offer different alternatives for evaluating patents as loan collateral.