‘Ignorance of law is no excuse in the eyes of law’. India is no exception to this most notorious law idiom. Indian IP laws have provisions for due diligence. IP due diligence should be made an integral part of corporate planning for maximization of profits. The advantages of opting for IP due diligence at the time of inception, development and launch of a new product line pays rich dividends in long run. The main components of IP due diligence are as follows:

• Identification and location of IP assets scattered in a business house;
• Development of strategy to protect and commercialize IP assets;
• Evaluate compliance with applicable laws and regulations impacting IP;
• Assisting in maximizing the economic return from IP assets;
• Assessing worth of IP in the cases of merger, acquisition and other such activities;
• Evaluation of any potential infringement claims (non-infringement opinion); and
• Analyzing grants of rights in the IP assets.

It has become increasingly important for companies to keep track of the extent, quality, and use of their intangible assets, as well as to have processes and procedures in place to invent, create, perfect and use intellectual property rights associated with those assets. Business Houses should also protect their business against the unauthorized use of third party IP rights to reduce risks of costly litigation. One mechanism that helps address these issues is an ‘intellectual property audit’.