Framework for Technology Valuation of Early Stage Technologies

초기단계 기술의 가치평가 방법론 적용 프레임워크

Early stages of technology valuation have been often overlooked or under-represented. The early stage technologies are even riskier due to their inadequacy of commercial development and market applicability. More than 95% of patents fail to earn any revenues so that the majority of patents were valueless. Technology transfers from laboratories at universities and research institutes to industrial firms have increased to acquire value from invented technologies. Technology transfer, a process of transferring discoveries and innovations resulted from research to commercial sectors, typically comprises several steps: disclosing the discoveries and innovations, i.e., intellectual property (IP), evaluating the IP's economic prospects, securing a patent, copyright or trademark for the IP, commercializing the technology through licensing, forming a joint venture, or selling. At each of those stages in the research and development of technology, the value of technology would play a very important role of making decision on the movement toward the next step, however, the financial value of technology is not easy to determine due to a great amount of uncertainty in the course of research and development, and commercialization. This paper refers to technology embodied as devices, equipment, software or processes primarily developed at public research institutions such as universities. Sometimes it is also as the result of externally financed projects contracted with industry. Nearly always technology developed at public research entities results in laboratory prototypes. When it is required to define the technology transfer contract terms for the license of the university patrimonial rights to external funding companies or other interested parties, a question arises: what is the monetary value? In this paper, we present a method for technology valuation based on the identification of specific value points related to its development. The final technology value must be within previously defined value limits. This paper consists of the review of issues related to technology transfer and commercialization, the identification of characteristics of technologies in the early stage of technology development, the formulation of framework of methods to value the early stage technologies, and the conclusion and implication of the previous review.

본 고에서는 연구기관에서 개발된 기술의 기술이전 가격결정을 위해 초기단계 기술의 가치평가를 포함하여 연구개발이 진행됨에 따른 단계별 가치평가 방법을 적용하기 위한 개념적 틀을 구상해보고자 한다. 전통적인 기술가치평가는 암묵적으로 기술이 제품에 적용되는 경쟁기술인 상태를 가정하는 경우가 많다. 그러나 초기단계 기술 또는 경쟁환경에 노출되기 이전 단계의 기술에 대한 가치는 단일의 평가방법만으로 평가하는 데 한계가 존재한다. 따라서 이와 같은 초기단계 기술에 대한 가치평가를 수행하기 위한 방법론 적용의 프레임워크를 제시하고자 하였다.