ITM Power Plc (ITMPF)

[Gerry321]

How much are ITM patents worth ?

TT
Consider this

How much is any patent worth before the invention is known ?
Answer
zero
or even less when you include the the cost of maintaining a patent that has no value
This is how the market currently values ITMs patent portfolio
ie less than zero
However
If you read the patents and believe the ITM technical releases you will conclude that these patents have considerable value providing they can be turned into marketable products

You need faith in your own judgement and confidence that the bop that remains to be done contains no insurmountable challenges,costs or delays which would jeopardise bring them to market before the cash runs outs
If you do you have an opportunity to exploit something the rest of the PIs and funds dont know or believe
ie
The potential value of the patents and some idea of how long it will take to bring the products to market
You can take comfort from this
All the fuel cell cos that have come and gone in the past 15 yrs didnt do so because they had a first class product that was technically proven in laboratory trials and found to be reliable in subsequent field trials
They failed or are currently failing because the products have intrinsic defects These defects caused them to be unreliable in laboratory trials Despite this, for financial reasons, these cos went ahead and sought subsidised projects Inevitably these products proved unreliable in public trials thus hindering their ability to secure further subsidised projects This in turn forced repeated fund raising until eventually the business model was deemed a failure
ITM have a simple product which does not have the design features which caused competitive products to fail
They have deliberately sought to debug their product in the laboratory setting before embarking on external trials
They have set themselves the goal of moving from a production prototype to a saleable product after relatively short field trials They can only do this if they have confidence in their internal testing processes
However few people outside the knowledgeable investors on the BB really understand all of this and hence look for reassurance in traditional commercial and financial yardsticks
The knowledgeable investors reckon the patents themselves more than justify an sp many multiples of the current level
But the vast majority of PIs and funds dont agree
if the sp is any yardstick
So where does that leave us ?
In a place which says
"We believe that even incompetent mgt will be able to exploit ITM`s Intellectual Property sufficiently to underwrite survival of the business and its eventual profitability"
We also believe that the market will eventually recognise the
intrinsic worth of the ITM product portfolio and value the business appropriately"
And thats where I am
Irrespective of what non invested PIs and fund mgrs think