Article 34 — Intellectual property valuators
In brief
This article allows the entities supported by the Competence Centre, and relevant finance and insurance entities, to request an assessment of the value of their intellectual property rights under the voluntary Union framework. Such assessments may be carried out by an intellectual property valuer certified under Article 35, who must act independently and avoid conflicts of interest.
Key points
- Requesting a valuation under the voluntary Union framework is optional and open to the entities referred to in Article 32(2) and to relevant public and private finance and insurance entities.
- Assessments may be carried out by an IP valuer certified in accordance with Article 35.
- Where a valuation is commissioned in connection with a financing transaction, the necessary information is provided under the parties’ arrangements and subject to confidentiality and trade-secret protection.
- The valuer must act independently and avoid any conflict of interest with those concerned by the assessment.
- Fees and costs are borne by the commissioning party unless otherwise agreed, and must be transparent, reasonable and proportionate to the assessment’s nature, scope and complexity.
What it means in practice
IP holders and their advisers seeking finance can commission a structured valuation of their rights, while investors, banks and insurers gain a recognised route to obtain independent assessments before a transaction. IP valuers who obtain certification under Article 35 would be able to carry out these assessments, subject to independence and conflict-of-interest duties and transparent, proportionate fees.
Official text — Article 34 (COM(2026) 567)
Source: European Commission, proposal for a Regulation establishing the European Innovation Act, COM(2026) 567 final, 9 September 2026. Read the official proposal (PDF). Text may change during the legislative process.
Anthony Bochon’s analysis
This article introduces the figure of the certified IP valuator and, importantly, keeps recourse to one optional: parties may request a valuation under the voluntary Union framework, and it may be carried out by a certified valuer. In my assessment that restraint is deliberate and correct. Valuation of intellectual property is methodologically contested — income, market and cost approaches routinely yield divergent figures for the same asset — so a mandatory monopoly of certified valuers would have been both premature and hard to reconcile with the freedom to provide services. The requirements that the valuator act independently and avoid conflicts of interest, and that fees be transparent and proportionate, are the familiar guarantees I would expect around any financial-assessment function, and they align the profession with the expectations of lenders and auditors.
What I would watch is the confidentiality architecture in paragraph 2. Because a valuation commissioned for a financing transaction requires disclosure of precisely the sensitive technical and commercial information that constitutes the asset’s value, the reference to trade-secret protection under the arrangements agreed between the parties is doing significant work. My reading is that the quality and enforceability of the underlying confidentiality undertakings, not the certification itself, will determine whether innovative firms are willing to submit their IP to independent assessment.