Do registered IP rights get better loan terms than unregistered?

Full Explanation

Yes. Registered rights, principally patents, trade marks and registered designs, generally attract better lending terms than unregistered IP such as copyright, trade secrets, know-how and unregistered brand goodwill. The reason is evidential: a registration gives the lender a public record of what the asset is, who owns it, and when protection began, which makes title easier to prove and the right easier to enforce and to sell on default. That directly strengthens the legal-strength and saleability tests lenders apply, and in turn supports a higher advance rate. Unregistered IP is not excluded, it is simply harder to underwrite. Trade secrets and know-how can be extremely valuable, but their scope is defined by confidentiality rather than a certificate, so proving ownership and realising value in a forced sale is less certain. Lenders respond by weighting registered rights more heavily and by leaning on the third test, separability: can the asset be sold or licensed apart from the business at all. Indicative loan-to-value across the broader market tends to sit around 20 to 40 per cent of appraised IP value, with insurance-backed structures from lenders such as Aon, Fortress or Brevet reaching up to roughly 50 per cent; NatWest's High Growth IP Loan lends up to around half of appraised value. These are general ranges, not guarantees, and the registered-versus-unregistered split is one of several factors that move a facility within them. Whichever category your IP falls in, the value is set to a credit standard under the International Valuation Standards (IVS 210) and RICS Red Book guidance (VPGA 6), on a conservative, orderly-disposal premise, using income methods such as relief-from-royalty or a with-and-without analysis. Registered rights with attributable, licensable revenue are the strongest collateral of all, because the loan can be serviced from the royalties the IP underpins. The practical next step is to map your portfolio into registered and unregistered buckets and consider filing for the rights that anchor your revenue but remain unregistered, a pending patent or an unregistered mark that could be registered. Even where filing is not viable, documenting ownership and commercial use of unregistered IP will improve how a lender views it.

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