Practice area Valorisation

Medical aids, e-health developments, energy-saving ideas, sustainable nutritional technologies, research into healthcare and knowledge institutes regularly produce astounding inventions. If you would then like to introduce them into the market, it would be advisable to make proper arrangements with all concerned during the development stage already. What will your valorisation strategy be? Who will acquire the intellectual property rights? Is it necessary to establish a separate business? A sound approach can often extend one’s research budget. Our Valorisation Team can provide you with support for this in the form of expert advice.

What is valorisation?

Valorisation is the process of marketing and monetising new knowledge, technologies or inventions and is a core task of knowledge institutes and healthcare institutions. Valorisation can benefit society: enabling as many people as possible to benefit from knowledge in development. At the same time it has an economic purpose: to generate income which an institution can use for follow-up or new research.

Subsidised collaboration

With growing frequency knowledge institutes and healthcare institutions are required to conduct research together with other parties, for example, as part of a public-private joint venture. Government also expects institutions to valorise new knowledge so as to generate additional cashflows. Because the number of parties involved is on the increase, there is a growing need to make unambiguous arrangements, preferably during the preparatory stage of research.

Valorisation Team

Does your organisation require specific knowledge about the valorisation of innovation? Dirkzwager’s Valorisation Team can be of service to you in this respect. Our Valorisation Team consists of specialists active in various disciplines. We pool our knowledge to provide your organisation with the best possible advice.

The following forms of expertise are covered:

• intellectual property – advice on the protection of new innovations and knowledge with the aid of intellectual property rights, such as patents, copyright, and database or design rights. This also includes the provision of advice on research agreements, joint development agreements, licences and licensing or other fees. Who acquires the rights to the research findings and what rights do the other parties hold? Will you hold the intellectual property rights yourself or will you assign them to a market party?
• corporate law – What legal structure should the new business or start-up (joint venture) have and what rights will the various shareholders hold?
• competition law – What state aid rules apply in the case of subsidised projects and is it possible that prohibited state aid has occurred? But also, are any arrangements between parties which inhibit competition permitted?
• tax law – What is the best possible tax structure within which to accommodate research or within which it is possible for project partners to collaborate with each other? What is the impact of the tax regime on the valorisation project? For example, is there a duty to pay corporation tax or is it possible to deduct VAT levied on expenses?

Optimum commercial exploitation of valuable knowledge

Time and cost-savings, and a larger return: comprehensive advice can yield the benefits which your organisation requires. All of the members of the Valorisation Team have expertise and experience in the healthcare and educational sectors, and extensive contact with knowledge institutes. With this background, we look forward to serving as your sparring partner during every stage of your project. Together we can ensure that your invention or know-how has a reliable legal and tax foundation.

Contact

If you would like to receive more information about our Valorisation Team or to make an appointment, please contact Christel Jeunink (a lawyer specialising in intellectual property and IT law) on +31 (0)26 353 8367 or by email at jeunink@dirkzwager.nl. The rest of the team consists of Petra de Waal (tax consultant and VAT specialist), Sjaak van der Heul (competition law lawyer), Kübra Memis-Saginci (candidate civil law notary) Rosanne Kuiper (health law lawyer), Lex van Noordenburg and Mats Emonts (tax consultants and corporation tax specialists).