On June 18, 2020, LES Russia in cooperation with ICC Russia and the law firm Gorodissky & Partners held the webinar "Venture Capital: How to Set Up a Business on Intellectual Products."

The webinar covered the most important and practical issues to be considered by the business people when commercializing and transacting IP assets. As always, the panel of speakers was brought together in a way that the topics were discussed from both commercial and legal perspectives. Professor Natalia Karpova, Ph.D., Vice President of LES Russia, who is a very experienced IP practitioner and honorable teacher, moderated the discussions perfectly.

Within the first round of discussions, the speakers (Veronika Fridman, Ph.D., Counsel with Gowling WLG and Natalia Polyakova, Ph.D., Director of Legal with JSC Russian Venture Company) provided the overview on start-ups and joint ventures, as well as the role of IP assets in these structures, and described the basic stages of the newly born and IP-related project. Ph.D. Polyakova also commented on the practical values of inviting IP and investment professionals to the IP projects at the very beginning, so as to avoid any inconsistencies and concerns in the future.

Another section of the webinar was devoted to the valuation of IP assets. Alexey Sergeev, Ph.D., Director of Corporate Valuation and Consulting with Swiss Appraisal, spoke about recent practices in this particular field, and analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the various models and approaches applied to value IP rights.

Sergey Medvedev, Ph.D., LL.M., Partner at Gorodissky & Partners, delivered the presentation on security interests over IP rights in financial transactions. He emphasized that the banking and financial sector is getting more and more familiar with the essence and role of IP assets used to secure loans, credits, investments, etc. Dr. Medvedev also described the structure of the relevant transactions secured with IP, and commented on practical tips and best practices in this special area.

The final topic was devoted to IP due diligence and audit. Sergey Vasiliev, Ph.D., Partner at Gorodissky & Partners, put some stress on practical aspects, technologies and methodologies to be applied when running IP checks. Collecting data, proper data processing, questioning the personnel and discovering the risks were all discussed within this section.

Despite the on-line format, the event was very productive and attracted an impressive audience. About 70 people and IP experts attended the webinar.

September issue of les Nouvelles