A New Zealand horticultural innovation company had successfully developed a new apple cultivar with strong market appeal: distinctive flavour, extended shelf life and high export viability.  The cultivar was protected under plant variety rights (PVRs) in New Zealand and select offshore markets, and there was interest from international partners to license the rights for production and distribution.

However, the company faced a challenge – how to value the PVRs for the purposes of negotiation.  Standard models used for patents or trade marks weren’t directly applicable, and existing market comparables were limited and opaque.

To provide a structured, defensible valuation of the PVRs to support the licensing transaction, our approach involves:

• Reviewing the legal scope, jurisdictional coverage and enforceability of the PVRs

• Assessing the unique commercial characteristics of the cultivar: yield, consumer demand, climate resilience

• Benchmarking licensing structures and royalty rates across comparable fruit and agricultural IP deals

• Modelling multiple licensing scenarios based on territory exclusivity, downstream royalties and market share assumptions

The result is a report that not only guided the commercial terms of the deal, but gave the company a clear articulation of the value they had created, and how that value might change under different licensing arrangements.

A deal would allow the company to monetise its innovation through royalties while retaining control over brand and quality standards.  The valuation would also be a foundation for ongoing discussions with other prospective licensees in Asia and Europe.