Eugene Kublanovsky will be presenting on IP Considerations in Business Divorces to the International Intellectual Property Society (IIPS) on June 14, 2018. Eugene will discuss business “break-ups” and the affect they have on a business’s intellectual property assets. The presentation will also address how business owners can best avoid problems which could imperil their ongoing interests in these assets when a business partnership fails, as well as provide practical tips for advising clients who already find themselves litigating a messy business separation. A description of the program follows:
Business partners have the best intentions when building a company. They endeavor towards success, but failures and “break-ups” are much more common than IPOs. An often overlooked issue is what will happen to a company’s IP assets—for example, its trademarks, copyrights, patents, or trade secrets—afterwards? If both partners want to proceed in business, just not together, a dispute over the trademark(s) or trade secret(s) may be brewing. Some remedies include rebranding, segmentation, co-existence, and territorial separation. Alternately, if a business owns copyrightable source code or patents, which may be valuable in the future, the valuation of such assets may be difficult to calculate and lead to litigation. Remedies to this situation may include different forms of internal auction, payments for winding up expenses, or even “silent investor” ownership in an IP holding company going forward. Our presentation will address these concerns, including suggestions for advising clients on how they can avoid such problems and potentially head off litigation, and provide practical tips for advising clients who already find themselves in court litigating a messy business divorce.
