Customers, potential lenders and acquirors will look carefully at such intellectual property to determine if the company is a good potential business partner or investment.
Intellectual property is important for both defensive and offensive purposes.
Offensive purposes are when someone else is using your intellectual property and you need to take legal action to protect your competitive position. A royalty bearing license may cause a product to be too expensive to be competitive. Patents in particular are used for strategic business purposes, both offensive and defensive purposes. Owners of intellectual property rights in a SOC can be complicated. A single chip may require the intellectual property of multiple owners.