This handbook is intended as a useful document for intangible asset management inquiries, with a special emphasis on licensing, transaction due diligence and bankruptcy. It attempts to help improve the management of companies with underleveraged intangible asset portfolios. The handbook benefits those in the intellectual property community and individuals across all areas of corporate management, as well as attorneys and business people involved in deal-making, tax planning, and resource allocation and asset exploitation. Is it difficult to define an intangible asset? The following observations should be kept in mind as you distinguish tangible assets from intangible ones.

• Identifying and defining intangible assets that are owned or controlled by a corporate entity is not always easy, especially in a merger, litigation, or reorganization. 
• Many external events affect the value of intangible assets (far more than tangible assets), and the impact of a bankruptcy or reorganization affects intangibles far more than tangible asset classes.
• There is much greater uncertainty as to ownership and future value extraction in a bankruptcy or reorganization, since many different and intersecting parties and interests impact the intangible assets.
• Other intellectual property regulations and organizations often conflict or overlap with the authority and law of the bankruptcy court and process.
• The type and nature of intangibles is changing with time, with new intellectual property being created, including trademarks for sounds and smells, and patents for plants, animals and business methods.
  

Relevant exhibits, case studies, common terms, and a detailed index are included.