Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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A Method for Valuing Intellectual Assets
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention is related generally to a method of measuring and valuing an org~ni7~tion's
5 intellectual and/or intangible assets. Specifically, the present invention is related to a novel
process of valuing soft assets, such as progl~"~"~i"g knowledge, operational databases and/or-
int~n~ihle assets, such as knowledge, experience, and information. Information gained through
using this method can be used in many ways by the olg~ni7~tion.
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
0 Appreciation is growing in the 1990's for those aspects of "valuable" companies that makes them
valuable, beyond the assets evidenced by traditional accounting systems. These newly recognized
assets are those that are implicitly recognized when someone states, "Company X is a great
company because it's "well-run", or "when we have a problem, we hire Company Y because we
know they will get the job done right" or, "we hire Co~ ally Z, because we know they have the
5 talent and ingenuity to be able to solve our problem." These are the assets of a company that
include notions such as creativity, innovation, cohesiveness, fairness, etc., - the aspects that make
a good company good. Because these are not tangible assets such as equipment or real property,
but are knowledge-based, these assets are becoming known collectively as "intellectual capital."
In the new economy, intellectual capital is being taken more and more seriously, to the extent that
20 some banks are even beginning to consider some of these assets to be a better credit risk than
"hard" assets. Moreover, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is presently holding
meetings to discuss gell~ldlillg definitions of intellectual capital as it pertains to market valuation
of stocks, and the Internal Revenue Service is investigating the possibility of defining and
classifying aspects of intellectual capital as a new source of taxable assets.
2 5 Intellectual Capital is a knowledge-based asset created by the interaction (often synergistic) of the
skill, information, and experience acquired by an org~ni7~tion to perform its varied activities,
including product development (products and/or services), marketing, sales, org~ni7~tional
management, etc., that enable it to grow and prosper. It can be seen as the total value of a
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supplier (company or other organi7~tion) minus its hard assets, where total value can be
approximated by, but not limited to, its market value. Intellectual Capital goes beyond reputation,
good-will, and intellectual property, such as patents and trademarks, to encompass qualities of
innovation, experience, management expertise, vision in the senior management, communication
5 channels within the organi7~tion, etc.
Thus, intellectual capital is an aspect of a business that was intuitively recognized, but now, in
the age of information technology and the expansion of service oriented companies, is becoming
formerly recognized, defined and classified. Some traditional intellectual assets, such as patents,
copyrights, trademarks and good-will are well known, established pieces of int~ngihle property
0 that have been cultivated, leveraged and sold just as real property. Now, the value of newly
recognized intellectual assets are being conceptn~li7e~1 and added to the list of assets comprising
intellectual capital.
Components of intellectual capital can be categorized on the basis of the extent to which the have
been formally recognized into 1) Traditional Intellectual Assets comprising Intellectual Property:
5 patents, trademarks, copyrights, good-will and reputation (traditionally estimated by market-
value); 2) Semi-Recognized Intellectual Assets comprising know-how and experience, education
around a functional expertise, for example, educational degrees and years experience in a position
(the market-value for someone based on their resume); and 3) Newly Emerging Intellectual Assets
including internal processes, knowledge, skills, information, data and experience that companies
2 o gather and use to make effective and efficient decisions. One manner of identifying, defining and
valuing an new intellectual assets is to analyze knowledge-based transactions that occur between
a supplier and its customer.
Knowledge of a company's intellectual assets is useful to inform many kinds of business decisions.
For example, knowledge of a company's intellectual assets can be useful to inform self-analysis
2 5 for development, cultivation and management of internal resources - in this fashion, assessment
of intellectual assets shows a company where their strengths and we~kn~sses are, allowing them
to determine areas that need to be bolstered and possibly departments that should be tailored.
Knowledge of intellectual assets can also form the basis for decisions regarding market direction
assisting detelmillalion of realistic opportunities for growth within the market, as a means for
3 o measuring and responding to market forces. Some assets of intellectual capital can be used as
bank collateral, if they are sufficiently defined and package to constitute a source of marketable
value. For example, companies are using colllpu~el networking systems to create electronic
libraries and forums to capture employees' knowledge and experience, generating a shared
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organi7~tional asset. Information regarding information capital of other companies can help assess
the profitability of partnering or acquiring them, a sort of health ~cses~m~nt of potential partners.
Clear awareness of a company ' s intellectual assets can help to design effective
rnarketing/advertising that will clearly inform potential customers of ways in which qualities of
5 their services (intellectual assets) are superior in the market.
Several major companies are beginning to make m~n~ging intellectual capital a business reality
by attempting to evaluate their intellectual capital, by identifying it, m~n~ging it to enhance its
growth, and making "company shaping" decisions based upon an appreciation of its value to
maximize it. Formal appreciation of these assets is beginning to impact human resources strategy
0 and change the design of business operations. These companies are among the first to act upon
the belief that it is possible to describe and measure how knowledge adds value, and that m~n~ging
intellectual capital improves financial performance of the company.
The biggest financial services company in Sc~n(lin:lvia, Skandia Group, was the first corporation
to hire someone to act as director of intellectual capital to Skandia Assurance & Financial
5 Services, its largest and reportedly fastest-growing division, with a 1993 gross premium income
($2.2 billion) being 39% of Skandia's total. The responsibility of this director is to capture the
assets of intellectual capital, to conceptualize the hidden values and create new images by which
to describe them. Three principles evolved with this post: first, the value of intellectual assets
exceeds by many times the value of assets that appear on the balance sheet; second, intellectual
20 capital is the raw material from which financial results are made; and third, managers must
distinguish between two kinds of intellectual capital, human and structural. Human capital is the
source of innovation and renewal, but whose cultivation requires structural intellectual assets, such
as information systems, knowledge of market channels and customer relationships and
management focus, which turn individual know-how into the property of a group.
2 5 Another example of one of the pioneering companies is Can~ n Imperial Bank of Commerce
(CIBC), North America's seventh-largest bank, with $107 billion in assets. They have created a
model of intellectual capital beginning with the definition that intellectual capital is the asset
created from the interplay of human capital, structural capital and customer capital. To manage
this asset, CIBC is measuring, m~n~ging and cultivating the individual skills needed to meet
30 customers' needs (human capital), the organi7ational capabilities deman(led by the market
(structural capital), and the strength of its franchise (customer capital).
Another early attempt was seen in 1993 when Dow Chemical created a new position in its
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company, director of intellectual asset management to cultivate the most traditional of intellectual
assets, patents. By olga~ g its extensive patent portfolio, Dow saved more than $1 million in
its first 18 months. Dow's strategy for intellectual capital management comprises six steps:
1) define the role of knowledge in the business;
5 2) assess competitors' strategies and knowledge assets;
3) classify the knowledge portfolio into what the orgal-i~lion owns, what they use, and where
the asset belongs;
4) evaluate what the assets are worth, what they cost, what will it take to maximize their
value, whether they should be retain~d, sold or abandoned;
0 5) based on what was learned through the assessments listed above, identify gaps that must
be filled to exploit knowledge or holes that should be plugged to fend off rivals and either
direct R&D there, or look for technology to license;
6) assemble the new knowledge portfolio and repeat steps 1-6.
Some systems or methods focus on the customer/co~ ally interface to design colllpally policy and
5 action. For example, Renaissance Solutions, a con.~ulting firm in Lincoln, Massachusetts
developed a concept called the balanced scorecard to supplement traditional financial measures
with criteria that measured performance from three additional perspectives - (1) those of
customers, (2) internal business processes, and (3) learning and growth, to assist companies to
track financial results while sim-lltan~ously monitoring progress in building the capabilities and
2 0 acquiring the int~ngihle assets they would need for further growth.
The scorecard allows managers to introduce four new management processes that, separately and
in combination, contribute to linking long-term strategic objectives with short term actions. These
processes are: "tran.cl~ting the vision", which is a term that means a process that helps managers
to build a consensus around the organi7~tion's vision and strategy; "collllllunicating and linking",
25 which lets managers communicate their strategy "up and down" the organi7~tion and link it to
departmental and individual objectives; "business planning", which enables companies to integrate
their business and financial plans; and "feedback and learning", which gives companies the
capacity for strategic learning. The process of "translating the vision" examines the
customer/company interface and leads to asking four questions:
3 o 1) To succeed financially, how should we appear to our shareholders?
2) To achieve our vision, how should we appear to our customers?
3) To satisfy our shareholders and customers, at what business processes must we excel?
4) To achieve our vision how will we sustain our ability to change and improve?
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This process is company-centric in that the company is trying to determine how they should
appear to their customers and what business processes they think they must excel at to satisfy their
customers. A company following this method might even go so far as to question key customers
to learn how the customers think the colllpally should appear and what processes at which they
5 think the company should excel. However, there is no data collected or analysis performed
thereof to determine how the customers use the company's products and services and what value
these bring the customers and how they impact the finances of the customers. However, this
model, like all of its predecessors is hierarchical, with change being delivered top-down, rather
than growing up from the roots of the supplier/customer interface.
0 What is, therefore needed is a customer-centric method of valuing intellectual assets, that
dynamically (eg. non-static) identifies, defines and assesses the intellectual assets in relation to
their value to the customer (the marketplace).
SUMMARY OF INVENTION
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention, in its broadest sense, to provide a method of
5 d~t~ ~ing, measuring and valuing an orp~ni~i.lion's intellectual assets based on analysis of how
an organi7.~tion's data, il~lmalion, products, services, etc, (hereinafter referred to as DIPS) are
used, what DIPS are of value to, and how DIPS financially affect an olpa~ lion's customers and
relationships with those customers. This method comprises collecting data (including financial)
from customers and using it to identify and value intellectual assets. Information acquired using
2 o this method has many useful applications for the organi7ation and the method itself can be used
to model an artificial intelligence system for predictive analyses.
Other objects and advantages will become evident from the following detailed description of the
present invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF T~ DRAWINGS
2 5 FIGURE 1 presents a graphic representation of a customer-centric supplier (organi7ation).
FIGURE 2 depicts a graphic representation of an organi7ation comprising a supplier
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(org~ni7~tion) and many 1~ and 2~ customers, both internal and external. In thisexample, the supplier is the Systems Management Database Department, and a
product they supply to their internal customers (management - depicted in the
rectangles) are reports. The management uses the information in the reports to
supply their internal and external customers depicted by the triangles. The value
of the information passed onto the customers in the outer circle is affected by the
factors delineated with arrows (eg. trends, competition, market drives, etc.).
FIGURE 3 depicts a graphic representation of the method of valuing intellectual assets.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
0 The present invention provides a method that can be used to value intellectual assets. As a
corollary to this method, previously unrecognized intellectual assets are identified and defined.
This method therefore col~lilules a new and useful tool to assist suppliers to identify and estimate
the value of their intellectual assets.
This method is new because it draws upon customer information, particularly financial data,
whereas methods in the prior art focus on analysis of supplier information. Because of the source
of information, this method uniquely allows a supplier to align itself with the marketplace and to
anticipate and dynamically respond to changes in the marketplace.
In accordance with the present invention and as used herein, the following terms are defined with
the following mP~ning~, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
In this model, suppliers and customers can be objects, persons, companies, org~ni7~tions,
go~el~ , nations, etc.. The customer can be internal to the same org~ ion as the supplier,
such as when one department (the supplier) provides services to another department (the customer)
within an ol~ni~ ion (eg. the opinions generated by a legal department for the human resources
department), or the customer can be external to an orgal~iz~lion, such as when a m~nllf~hlrer (the
2 5 customer) hires the services of a transport service (the supplier) to deliver its goods.
Intellectual Capital is a knowledge asset created by the interaction of the skill, information, data
and experience, etc. acquired by a supplier as it performs its varied activities, including product
development (products and/or services), marketing, sales, org~ni7~tional management, etc., that
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enable it to grow and prosper. It can be seen as the total value of a supplier minus its hard assets,
where total value is not limited to market value. Intellectual Capital can be classified into at least
three areas: human, structural, and market (customer). Human capital comprises the assets that
individuals bring to and create in the organi7ation out of knowledge, experience, innovation,
5 creativity and resourcefulness, etc. Structural capital (eg. information systems, knowledge of
market channels and customer relationships and management focus) is nPcess~ry to exploit human
capital. Market capital is the loyal customer/client base that supports the supplier.
The term, act, is used to conceptually encapsulate any data, inrol,llalion, product, service (service,
also being defined in the broadest sense to include financing, credit, modes of billing, advice,
0 etc.), communication etc. that occurs between the supplier and the customer. Thus, act can be
used in a manner analogous to product, in conventional descriptions where goods are sold between
a supplier and a customer.
DIPS is an acronym used to refer to, but not limited to, the supplier's data, information, products,
services, etc. that are transferred to the customer. It includes knowledge-based transactions.
5 Operational ~.csescm~nt is defined by the equation R = (PO/Tc)(S), where PO is the performance
outcome, Tc is the completion time required to accomplish a PO, S is a quality/service standard
(S), and R is the rate of accomplishing a performance outcome to a certain standard. This
equation describes an act between supplier and customer that occurs at a certain standard, within
a certain time frame.
2 o A customer-centric organi7ation is one where the org~ni7~tion's business strategy is aligned with
the customer's use of the supplier's product or service, the customer's performance outcomes and
financial constraints. The relationship between the supplier and the customers when there are
more than one customer can be conceptll~li7e~1 as concentric circles where the innermost circle is
the supplier, the first circle, adjacent to the innermost circle is the primary customer, the next
2 5 circle, adjacent to the circle representing the primary customer represents the secondary customer
(the customer's customer), the next circle, adjacent to the circle representing the secondary
customer represents the tertiary customer (the customer's customer's customer), and so on, as
pictured in Figure 1. This representation demonstrates the ra li~ting effect of an act that can exist
between a supplier, its customer and potentially successive customers.
3 o Customer can be internal or external to the orga~ tion. This definition of customer is the most
generic, whenever there is a giver and a receiver of DIPS, encompassing any two people or
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departments that need to communicate about a product, service, data or outcome. For example,
a customer of a person in the engineering department could be the m~nllf~tllring department. An
graphic example of an org~l-i7~tion wherein one department is the supplier to many types of
internal and external customers is presented in Figure 2.
In the most general description of the present invention, the method comprises, but is not limited
to, the following steps. This method is described conceptually and pictorially in Figure 3.
1) Construct a data base comprising qualitative information regarding the act(s) that
occur between the supplier and the customer. The performance outcomes, time
frames and standards for the data, information, products and/or services (DIPS)
0 must be included. This step builds data base #1, the first domain of information;
2) Construct another data base comprising financial data relating to the act(s) that
occurs between the supplier and the customer. This data may include down-line
value if the customer sells the DIPS to their customer;
3) Use information from data base #1 to define an act between the supplier and
customer that occurs to a certain standard, within a certain time frame, by
dete~ ,llil-i~-g the Operational Assessment equation .
4) Analy~ illrollllalion in data bases #1 and #2 to identify and define a list comprising
the supplier's assets.
S) Using the Operational ~ses.~mf~nt equation, assess the impact of changes in a said
asset from the point of view of the customer. Include in this assessment the
financial impact on the customer associated with changes in an asset.
6) Using the Operational ~ses~m~nt equation assess the impact of changes in a said
asset as it affects customer relationship to the supplier. Include in this assessment
the financial impact to the supplier resulting from changes in customer relationship
2 5 due to changes in an asset.
7) The value of a said asset is estimated from analyzing the information obtained in
step 5 and 6, weighted by considerations of relevancy to the assessment.
A specific example of how the method can be used is as follows.
1) determine customer use(s) of the supplier's DIPS. Determine and include
3 o performance outcomes, time frames and standards for how the customer uses the
supplier's DIPS;
2) acquire customer financial data indicating the value of the supplier's information,
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products and/or services to the customer;
3) calculate operational acsescment equation for the supplier's information, products
and/or services;
4) identify the supplier's assets are that are of particular value to the customer;
5) assess whether and to what extent change in an asset would affect the operational
assessment equation;
6) assess the financial impact to the customer associated with change in this asset;
7) assess the financial impact to the supplier associated with change in this asset with
respect to how the change:
0 i) impacts customer obtention?
ii) impacts customer acceptance?
iii) impacts customer retention?
iv) impacts use of the DIPS?
8) Total the rlllallcial impact, if any, from each of these categories (i-iv) and add it to
the information gained in step 6. This is the value of the intellectual asset.
This method is applicable to past, present, and future situations.
A pler~lled mode of working this invention entails using this method for valuing intellectual assets
within a system to (re)structure a supplier/organi7~tion. For example, in this system, the
intellectual asset valuation information would be used as an essential part of a four step process
comprising the steps of:
I. Assess Intellectual Capital of the Supplier
l) Determine purpose of the supplier/organi7~tion;
2) Determine whether the supplier has the infrastructure to be operationally efficient;
3) Delelll~il~e whether the individuals in the supplier/orga~ ion have the knowledge,
2 5 skills and competencies to be operationally efficient.
4) Answer the following set of questions for d~tellnillalions 1 - 3 above:
i) How do you know?
ii) How will you know?
iii) How will you measure and quantify performance?
30 II. Align the supplier's/organi7~tion's business strategy, structure and knowledge base with
the (internal or external) customer's business strategy by following the following steps:
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1) determine and communicate the supplier's/organi7~tion's performance outcomes
and objectives;
2) determine and communicate the supplier's/organi7~tion's structure;
3) determine and communicate the supplier' s/organi7ation' s knowledge and
competencies;
4) determine the customers's performance outcomes and objectives;
5) determine the customer's structure;
6) determine the customer's knowledge and competencies;7) match the supplier's/olgani~ ion's performance outcomes; objectives, structure,
0 knowledge and competencies so that the supplier's/organi7~tion's:
i) performance outcomes and objectives complement those of the target
customer's requirements;
ii) structure is responsive to the target customer's requests for products,
service and information;
iii) competencies educate the customer's regarding products, service and
information;
iv) operations are linked to the customer's financial requirements.
III. Determine and Value Supplier/Organi7~tion Intellectual Assets
1) determine customer use(s) of the supplier's/organization's information, products
2 o and/or services. Delermhle and include performance outcomes, time frames and
standards for how the customer uses the supplier's/organization's information,
products and/or services;
2) acquire customer financial data inflicatin~ the value of the supplier's/organi7~tions
information, products and/or services to the customer. This data may include
2 5 down-line value if the customer sells the product and/or services to their customer;
3) calculate operational assessment equation for the supplier's/organization's information, products and/or services;
4) identify the supplier/organi7~tion assets are that are of particular value to the
customer;
3 o 5) assess whether and to what extent change in an asset would affect the operational
assessment equation;
6) assess the financial impact to the customer associated with change in this asset;
7) assess the financial impact to the supplier/organi7~tion associated with change in
this asset with respect to how the change:
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i) impacts customer obtainment?
ii) impacts customer acceptance?
iii) impacts customer retention?
iv) impacts use of the DIPS?
8) Total the financial impact, if any, from each of these categories (i-v) and add it to
the information obtained in step 6. This is the value of the intellectual asset.
IV. Re~ngineer Supplier/O~ ni~ ion Based on Information acquired in steps I - III in any or
all of the areas including, but not limited to:
1) to inforrn self-analysis for development, cultivation and management internal
0 resources - in this fashion ~cses~mPnt of intellectual capital shows a company where
their strengths and weahnesses are; determine areas that need to be bolstered and
possibly departments that should be tailored;
2) to inform decisions regarding market direction; to determine realistic opportunities
for growth within the market - a means for measuring and responding to market
forces;
3) tailor lllalhelillg/advertising to realistically address customers.
In another pr~relled mode, this invention can be used to leverage intellectual assets for value by
clearly defining, delinP~ting and valuing intellectual assets for financial considerations. For
example, as bank collateral, if they can be sufficiently defined and "packaged" to coll~lilul~ a
2 o source of marketable value (for example, case reports recording experience that could be sold).
Another financial example could arise if an supplier is considering selling off some of its assets,
such as a division, it would want to include the value of its intellectual assets in the asking price,
for potential buyers.
In yet another prel~lred mode, the present invention provides for the relatively rapid analysis of
25 the complex data interdependencies pertaining to customer/supplier financial data through the
application of inference methods and heuristics to dynamic models of customer financial
information systems. Thus, an artificial intelligence system can be developed based on this
method to generate estimates of intellectual asset value using a predictive model such as a neural
network. In such a system this method could be executed relatively rapidly to repeatedly monitor
3 o the value of intellectual assets as customer data changes. This type of system would allow a
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organi7~tion to make predictive analyses and assist in strategic decisions.
In such a manner the present invention would be used as a learning system, where, from a plural
number of examples concerning a given object system (hereinafter called the training examples),
properties special to such training examples are extracted experimentally and such properties are
utilized in solving the problem in an unknown example (hereillarl~l called the input example). For
instance, in the field of business operations, it is possible to collect the oplilllulll operation in
various conditions of a system as the training examples, to extract the relation between the system
conditions and oplilllulll operation, and to use such relation in solving the problem of predicting
the optimum operation in the unknown, specific conditions.
0 In such a manner, the predictive model would generate estimates of the value of intellectual assets
based on learned relationships among variables describing the operational assessment equation and
the financial impact of changes in the supplier's intellectual asset upon the customer. The system
may also output reason codes indicating relative contributions of various variables to a particular
result, and may generate reports describing intellectual asset valuations, market trend analyses,
and recommendations regarding building or tailoring resources related to an asset.
The present invention will now be illustrated, but is not intended to be limited, by the
following example.
EXAMPLE I
In this example, the supplier is a mail delivery service, say PostCo, and the customer is a law firm
2 o that uses PostCo to deliver and receive important, confidential documents as an either same-day
or overnight time-frame.
1) determine customer use(s) of the supplier's information, products and/or services.
Determine and include performance outcomes, time frames and standards for how the
customer uses the supplier's information, products and/or services;
2 5 The type of information that would be collected to form database #l would include descriptions
such as:
- the customer uses the delivery service to quickly, efficiently and correctly send
original documentation to their customers
- the performance outcome begins with pickup of an envelope and ends with its
3 o delivery to the address of the 2~ customer (the law firm's customer)
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- the service attaches a bar-code to each envelope to assist in its tracking
- the information pertaining to delivery is entered into the supplier's computerised
tracking system
- the law firm has PostCo deliver, on the average, 50 documents a day
- the law firm must have correct delivery so S, the quality standard, must equal 1.0
- the law firm requires overnight delivery, at the latest
2) acquire customer financial data indicating the value of the supplier's information,
products and/or services to the customer;
0 - the competitor delivery system costs $3 less per letter
- the competitor does not have a computer/bar code system
- lost deliveries cost the law firm an estimated $100 to re-produce the documents and
courier them to their destination
- this customer pays PostCo approximately $500 per week in delivery expenses
3) calculate Operational ~ses~m~nt equation for the supplier's information, products
and/or services;
PO = 50 documents S = 1.0 Time = 1 day
(PO)S = R ~0)1.0 = 50
T 1 day
4) identify the supplier's assets are that are of particular value to the customer;
- speed of delivery
- assurance of delivery (good track record)
- con~uLelized tracking system
- volume of deliveries/week
2 5 5) assess whether, and to what extent change in an asset would affect the operational
assessment equation;
- increasing delivery time would cause R to decrease
- decreasing assurance of delivery would cause R to decrease
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Perform steps 6-8 with regard to increased delivery time (for example). These steps should be
repeated for each asset of interest:
6) assess the financial impact to the customer associated with change in this asset;
- what if PostCo increases delivery time to a day and a half
- this would be represented by (~0)1.0 = 33.3
1.5
- would cause the law firm to hire another delivery system (increasing "mis-deliveries" and related costs), and probably the local letters would be
delivered by couriers; they estimate this would increase their "delivery
0 expenditures" by $300 per week.
7) assess the financial impact to the supplier associated with change in this asset with
respect to how the change:
i) impacts customer obtainment?
- not applicable for this query because customer was already obtained.
rather this question would be p~ ll if this analysis was being conducted
with a potential customer.
ii) impacts customer acceptance?
- the asset is so valuable to the customer that the leave. The financial impact
2 o of this loss is best reflected in iii) below, so it will be measured there.
iii) impacts customer retention?
- customer would choose to stop using PostCo, and would hire another
service; this loss of customer will cost the supplier the $500 they normally
receive from the customer
2 5 iv) impacts use of the DIPS?
- the DIPS become completely unused by this customer. Again, this is most
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applopliately measured in iii)
8) The value of a said asset is estimated from analyzing the information obtained in
steps 6 and 7, weighted by considerations of relevancy to the assessment (for
example, the reasoning indicates that some factors in step 7 are not applicable, so
their weighting is 0 for this query).
For this one query of this one customer, the estimated value for the cost of this asset would range
between $500/week/customer (the loss to weekly revenue from losing this customer) and
$800/week/customer (the loss to weekly revenue from losing this customer combined with the
cost to the customer). Note that this estim~te is based only one sampling of one customer. The
o range of the estimate would decrease to yield a more precise estimate as the number of customer's
queried and analyzed increases. The estimate would become more reflective of the "averaged"
customer population as the types of customers analyzed expands to include a more representative
sampling of the supplier's customer base. This concept is well known to those skilled in statical
analysis.
5 From the foregoing description, one skilled in the art can easily ascertain the essential
characteristics of this invention, and without departing from the spirit and scope thereof, can make
various changes and modifications of the invention to adapt it to various usages and conditions.
Consequently, such changes and modifications are properly, equitably, and "intended" to be,
within the full range of equivalence of the following (future) claims.
