• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.241-263
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• 2008

Within any income approach, a discount rate is used to convert some projected free cash flow to its presented value. In case of valuing companies, the most frequently used discount rate is the weighted average cost of capital(WACC) at the aggregate level. But technology valuation is different to discounting aggregate corporate cash flow since it is concerned about individual Intellectual property. Therefore, blindly applying standard discount rate such as WACC in technology valuation is unlikely to lead to the right result. The primary focus of this paper is to establish the structure of discount rate for technology valuation and to suggest the method of estimation. To determine an appropriate discount rate for technology valuation, the level of technology risk, market risk and competitive risk should be included in the structure of discount rate. This paper suggests the build-up model which consists of three components as a expansion of the CAPM. It includes (1) a risk-free rate of return, (2) general market risk premium and beta and (3) intellectual property risk premium related to technology risk and specific target market risk. However, there is no specific check list for examining the intellectual property risk until now and no specific method for quantifying its risk into risk premium. This paper developed the 10 element to determine the level of the intellectual property risk and applied estimation function such as linear function, natural log function and exponential function to transform the level of risk into risk premium. The limitation of this paper is that the range of intellectual property risk premium is inferred based on the information of foreign and domestic valuation agency. Finally, this paper explored the development of an intellectual property discount rate for technology valuation and presented the method in order to quantify the intellectual property risk premium.