Intellectual Property Insurance

Intellectual Property is increasingly recognised as a key asset of many businesses, for example, brand recognition, protecting the investment in research and development into new products or exploiting or extending markets for existing products (etc.). We recently assisted Underwriters at Lloyd's in the drafting and market research for a novel kind of Intellectual Property insurance policy, together with Ernst and Young.

In broad terms, the policy is designed to indemnify the insured company in the event of the company's Intellectual Property being found to be invalid or otherwise rendered worthless or of negligible value, for example, by reason of claims against the assured, governmental action, adverse media reporting (etc.) as specified in the policy. The policy is designed to protect key intellectual property. For this reason, only the key part of a company's portfolio need be insured under this policy, unlike most Intellectual Property insurance.