| Headline: IP rights prove crucial in dealmaking Source: Euromoney Date: August 2001 Author: Joff Wilde Technology companies have played a majorrole in forcing the investment community tostart taking intellectual property seriously.Telecoms and their equivalents in thesoftware and biotechnology sectors, forexample, are all dependent to a greater orlesser extent on patents and other forms ofintellectual property. In 1997, Texas Instruments purchased loss-making Amati Communications for $450 million, 35 times the $13 million worth of sales the acquisition had made over the previous 12 months. In doing so, Texas Instruments’ chief executive officer, Tom Engibous, got his hands on a patent portfolio centred on digital subscription lines, the technology behind modems that offer high data capacity over ordinary phone lines. Nowadays, DSL modems produced anywhere in the world contain chips based on designs licensed by Texas Instruments, so giving the company a valuable stake in a market that is set to generate $4 billion of sales this year. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||