Option 3: Joint Venture

The objectives of this approach are: to leverage intellectual property owners R&D, manufacturing, marketing and financial resources to facilitate new markets, possible acquirer becomes joint venture partner, nature of revenue sharing agreements may provide significant upside potential for intellectual property owner, and contribution into joint venture may be intellectual property by the intellectual property owner and cash or other assets by acquirer.

The concerns of using this approach are: sharing in future revenue/profitability may be based on contributions to the joint venture (valuing these contributions can be challenging), requires close business relationship and coordinated efforts to achieve success, increased dependency on one party for completion and commercialization, and the effects of one party leaving the joint venture.