Patents as collateral: Intellectual property-based lending to high-growth businesses

Dr Bobby Mukherjee, CIPA Vice President, BAE Systems plc

Dr Bobby Mukherjee, Chief Counsel, IP & Technology Law – BAE Systems plc and Past President (2012-2014) of the IP Federation. He is the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) Vice-President, President-elect as of 1 January 2024. He previously served and currently sits on CIPA Council, and chaired the CIPA Internal Governance Committee in its formative stage.

Bobby is a qualified UK and European patent attorney with over 28 years’ experience of IP gained in private practice and at BAE Systems plc. He is currently the Head of IP (2009 -) at BAE Systems plc (a FTSE 30 company), which has one of the largest in-house IP teams in the UK. During Bobby’s IP Federation Presidential term, Bobby played a prominent role, on behalf of Industry, in actively engaging with the Parliamentary stages of the UK IP Bill 2013-2014. This resulted in the UK IP Act 2014, with a positive outcome for Industry. He currently sits on the IP Federation Council and until recently, chaired the IP Federation Trade Working Group. On behalf of the IP Federation, he gave evidence in January 2023 on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) IP provisions to the influential House of Commons International Trade Select Committee. As a direct result of the IP Federation’s diligent work to which Bobby significantly contributed since 2018, the UK is acceding to CPTPP on terms which do not threaten European Patent Convention membership, and which promote international harmonisation of patent laws, another long-standing IP Federation goal. This is a successful outcome for UK plc, and the wider UK patent profession.

Bobby’s career has mostly been spent in the physics field, obtaining and defending patent protection for new products, processes and services globally. He gained a first degree in Natural Sciences (specialising in Physics) from Cambridge University in 1990, and then a Doctorate Degree (D.Phil.) on High Temperature Superconductors from Oxford University in 1995. He has published various research papers in leading Scientific Journals during that time, and during his work experience at the National Physical Laboratory.

Bobby has been named a Corporate IP Star by Managing Intellectual Property every year since 2015.

He received the Legal 500 UK individual of the Year 2019 award for IP. He has been listed on the IAM Strategy 300: World’s leading IP Strategists (2022 and 2023).

In his spare time, Bobby enjoys spending time with friends and family, travelling, and closely following cricket.

Martin Brassell, Inngot Ltd

Martin Brassell is an expert in the use of intellectual property in business finance, and the identification, scoring and valuation processes needed to facilitate this emerging market. He has worked extensively with banks, investors, insurers and policymakers across the UK, Europe and Asia to develop new approaches that recognise the importance of intangible assets for business competitiveness and growth.

Martin is co-founder of Inngot Limited (www.inngot.com), which provides innovative online tools to help companies ‘unlock’ their IP value. The Inngot platform enables companies to identify, explain, analyse and value all their intangible assets. The tools are optimised for use in 15+ countries and have identified over $1bn in previously ‘hidden’ value for small and medium-sized businesses.

Martin has written and co-authored a number of influential publications on IP identification and financing. His international publications include Fostering the use of intangibles to strengthen SME access to finance (2019) and Secured lending for SMEs: Making effective use of registries and intangibles (2022), both for OECD, and two reports on intangibles identification for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). He was also the lead author on the 2013 Banking on IP? report and 2017 Hidden Value report for the UK Intellectual Property Office; and has co-authored a reference work for Oxford University Press, Economic Approaches to Intellectual Property, with Dr Nicola Searle.

Martin is an RSA Fellow and a member of CIPA’s IP Commercialisation Committee. He and Inngot are recognised by IAM Magazine as Global Leaders in its latest assessment of the top 300 IP strategists worldwide (see https://lnkd.in/g6jqY5z5).

Neil Bellamy, Natwest

Neil has been a front-line Banker for 30 years and for the last 10 years, has been responsible for the strategy, proposition and risk for the global TMT sector.  A portfolio with a balance sheet of c£17bn.

Bucks born & bred; he learnt his trade with the early technology firms who based themselves in the Thames Valley Tech cluster & is applying this experience to his UK role.  His team are the no.1 supporter of the Tech sector & help businesses from university spin out to FTSE100 to get the 3B’s – get Backing, get Big & get Bought.

As a Freeman of the City of London (International Bankers) he likes to give back to the banking industry and the tech sector that have both served him well in his career.  He’s a strong advocate of the bank’s apprentice programme, Entrepreneur Accelerator and Mentor on the Imperial Ventures Mentoring Service (IVMS) for world class Imperial College spin outs.  He’s accredited by the Institute of Enterprise & Entrepreneurship and Board Advisor to some of the UK’s most exciting start-ups.

An Intellectual Property (IP) evangelist he has been the UK’s leading banker in developing innovative IP debt propositions to help unlock the £15bn funding gap for UK Scale Ups and recently shared his success at the World IP conference (WIPO) in Geneva.