START-IP

According to a report published in the newspaper Dünya on 14.07.2014; “Based on the data of the study ‘Turkey’s Top 500 Industrial Enterprises’ of Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ICI), 349 of 470 companies which have been evaluated as mainly using low and medium technology in their production, generate 80% of the total added value, while medium technology companies’ share in the total added value is 17.8% and the share of the high tech companies 2.6%. Therefore, Turkey obtains the highest gross added value both in terms of amount and percentage from mainly ‘low tech’ industries.” (http://www.dunya.com/ekonomi/3-sektor-yuksek-vergiyle-katma-deger-sampiyonu-haberi-251840) Again according to the same study of Istanbul Chamber of Industry for the year 2015; “The R&D expenses of companies increased 7 percent compared to the previous year and reached to 3.35 billion Turkish Liras but its production-to-sales ratio remained the same: 0.74%. The distribution of the added value created by companies in proportion to their technology level remained pretty much the same compared to the level of 2014.

Among the Top 500 companies, the share of the added value created by medium and high tech companies remained at 22.1%.” (www.iso.org.tr/file/2016.06.09-basin-bulten-500buyuk-5605.pdf) ICI Chairman Erdal Bahçıvan stated that Turkey must create a new story of economic growth with a higher quality production and added: “Turkey must change the current picture when the world is talking about the Internet of Things and the production is facing with a new kind of evolution arising from Industry 4.0. If we want to escape from the middle income trap and to write a success story by returning to the production economy, we need to improve the quality of our economic growth. This new growth story must be oriented to high tech products, design and branding and supported by R&D works. This way, the growth will gain a qualitative and quantitative meaning and contribute to Turkey”.

As shown by the above data and reports, high tech production which created high added value can’t exceed 22.1% of the total of the industrial production of Turkey. It is obvious that this rate is very low compared to the industries of high tech countries. While the Industry 4.0 movement, which is defined all around the world as the 4th stage of the Industrial Revolution and adaptation activities which have been accelerated for the last two years, defined a faster, more flexible, higher quality and more efficient industrial journey whilst the fact that the industry of our country couldn’t increase the number of products with higher added value remains as an unsolved issue before us. At his point, as Özden & Güçlü Legal, we believe that the Start-Ups which are founded to produce high tech products that could generate higher added value could play an important role to narrow this gap and have an important role in the ecosystem while we aim to support these companies as best as we can.

It’s a crystal-clear fact that the Start-Ups which are founded to generate products with higher added value could increase their values tens of times if they take correct actions with an appropriate strategy, as shown by many examples around the world. If today Apple, WhatsApp, Facebook or others have transformed worth of billions of US dollars, it won’t be misguiding to say that this transformation is based on proper IP strategies. We shouldn’t forget that the power behind these companies does come from their intangible assets such as their trademarks, software or patents rather than their physical assets.

It is very possible in nowadays for a Start-Up, which is more organized, more agile and more adaptive to evolving circumstances, to become a valuable company by creating added values to their buinesses, as seen in many examples both in our country and in the world. But for that, Start-Ups need to have a proper intellectual property strategy with respect to their products based on creative ideas, just like the medium and large companies which have the same product range.

Özden & Güçlü Legal who had stepped in the Start-Up World and joined the angel investment network for a certain period of time, noticed the deficiency in this field and added the ‘strategic management of intellectual property rights’ service, called “Start-IP” service to its portfolio. We have observed that Start-Ups which have a potential of generating and marketing high tech products with higher added value lose their rights due to reason that they omit to protect their intellectual rights in a timely manner or they can’t run their intellectual property management processes according to a certain strategy either due to their lack of sufficient revenue or awareness, and consequently, they got into a jam because of their dominant management weaknesses, despite the fact that they could avoid to get into such difficult situations. But in fact, a proper intellectual property strategy is one of the instruments that would raise the value of the Start-Ups from day one and could attract the investments and investors that they seek for. Therefore, it is imperative for a Start-Up to allocate resources for the service of creating a proper intellectual property strategy as it for the development, production, marketing and accounting of a product.

 

“Start-IP” provides a proper intellectual property strategy to a Start-Up in four steps. Briefly, first the commercial goals of the company are determined and the intangible assets related to these goals (“IP Assets”) are identified. Then the competitive environment around the intangible assets of the company (“Competitive Landscape”) is defined. After the intangible assets of the company are aligned with its commercial goals, the intellectual property strategy of the company is formulated and implemented. The protection of the products comprised of proper intellectual rights and with proper application strategies is another important factor that could have an impact on the increase of the share value and on its ability to attract investors. Özden & Güçlü Legal aims to ensure this with an appropriate pricing model that takes into account the balance of income and expenses of the Start-Ups with the help of its experience of many years and with the assistance of its specialized solution partners.