IP Due Diligence in connection with a sale of a company

A large investment company was interested in buying a Swedish engineering company, Roplan International AB, which was up for sale by the founder. Through the general law firm Hamilton, we, Groth & Co, were engaged to do an IP Due Diligence of the engineering company’s patent portfolio.

We examined possible weaknesses of the patent portfolio

The patent portfolio at hand consisted of 27 patent families in Europe, USA, China, Japan and Korea. Our task was to conduct an IP Due Diligence on behalf of the potential buyer, and more specifically to find flaws in the patent portfolio, to be used as leverage in the negotiations of the purchase price.

Our qualitative research was used in the negotiations on the purchase price

Our IPDD followed our internally developed standard investigation method, where we first looked at the formalities of the portfolio for example, ownership of the patents, licensing agreements and agreements with the inventors. Secondly, we looked at the quality and substance of the patent portfolio which included factors such as the patents’ relation to the actual products, the strength of the patents and the patent claims in relation to prior art.

We completed the IP Due Diligence successfully and the parties could later reach an agreement with a purchase price of approximately 30 million Euros.