December 2004/January 2005

ATLANTA (Dec. 16, 2004) – Expertise in loss accounting figures prominently when proving cases of employee fraud or helping businesses bounce back from catastrophic events. But it also plays an increasingly important role in the realm of intellectual property.

According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, intellectual property includes “creations of the mind” -- creative works or ideas embodied in a form that can be shared or enable others to recreate, emulate or manufacture them. Accounting investigations into such property typically cover patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets.

“We’ve had several attorneys and others come to us and ask, ‘Can you do this?’ And our answer is ‘Yes, absolutely and we already have experience in these matters,’” said Roland Hoffman, resident managing partner for Matson, Driscoll and Damico in Charlotte. “Tracking down what type of loss a company incurs -- that’s what we do, throughout everything we do, at MD&D.”

He said professional forensic accounting services can be a key element when sorting out cases of intellectual property theft or infringement.

“You have a lot of trade secrets, a lot of trademarks out there, that people take advantage of, especially in the Information Age,” Hoffman said. “What’s more, there are certain things you can protect under intellectual property law, and some things that you can’t -- and you have to know the difference.”

To stay abreast of such topics, a team of MD&D partners and managers attended the 2004 meeting of the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts, held in Las Vegas on Dec. 3-6. In addition to Hoffman, the team included John Field, Chicago; Dixon Grier, San Francisco; Dennis McBay, Dallas; Brad Ryden, Philadelphia; and George Mora, Los Angeles.

“During the meeting, we discussed the basic framework of intellectual property law plus several court cases that have been used to set guidelines and laws in this arena,” Hoffman said. “Taking in this information obviously will add to the types of work we can do in this area and help us better serve our clients.”