In a business climate where more and more importance is given to corporate image, trademarks, designs and patents have become real market values and have acquired considerable business and advertising strength.
Quite often companies only think of protecting their trademarks, designs and patents by registration and they do not consider that these are real business assets, which might therefore be regarded to all effects as business investments and as income producing instruments and, as such, they should be recognised greater economic value in a broader prospective time frame.
Hence derives the usefulness, in some circumstances such as take-overs, mergers, requests for mortgages, license agreements, etc., of conducting economic assessments of single elements or of the whole patent, design and trademark portfolio, to the aim of offering a complete picture of the economic and patrimonial situation of a company.