The identification of the closest prior art is a good starting point for evaluating the legal and the economic value of an intellectual property (IP) asset. The next step is the evaluation of the patentability requirements (novelty, inventive step and industrial application).

Other factors to be taken into consideration are: potential market, development stage, time to market, product lifecycle, technology risk, detectability, design arounds and product value.

License agreements are the best way to ascribe value to an academic invention.