Posts Tagged: "acquisition"

InterDigital will end up acquiring more than 21,000 global patent assets from Technicolor, more than doubling InterDigital’s current portfolio of 19,000 patent assets. This includes more than 2,500 Technicolor patents which cover video coding technologies… As part of this transaction, Technicolor and InterDigital will also enter into a perpetual grantback licensing agreement, which will give Technicolor freedom to operate its remaining businesses and benefit from existing and future patents.

International patent brokerage and Intellectual Property advisory firm Tangible IP is poised to announce that it has successfully brokered the sale of a patent portfolio of close to 150 patent assets previously owned by French Sovereign Patent fund (SPF) France Brevets. Financial details of the agreement will not be disclosed. A quick search on the U.S. patent database indicates that the buyer of these patent assets is Didi Chuxing, one of Uber’s major competitors in Chinese market.

Broadcom’s latest bid increases the value of its proposed purchase agreement up from $70 in cash and stock per share up to $82 in cash and stock per share in a deal that would be valued at more than $121 billion. Broadcom’s first takeover bid came last November, originally offering $60 in cash and $10 in Broadcom stock per Qualcomm share. This most recent Broadcom bid retains the $60 in cash per share while increasing the value of Broadcom stock offered up to $22 per share. As a Broadcom press release announcing the increased bid notes, this $82 per share total represents a 50 percent premium over the closing price of Qualcomm shares on November 2nd, 2017, the last trading day unaffected by media speculation of the potential Broadcom buyout.

On Monday, November 6th, Singapore-based semiconductor designer Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) announced that it had offered a proposal to acquire San Diego, CA-based semiconductor rival Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM). The deal values Qualcomm at about $130 billion and Broadcom would pay $70 per share; stockholders would receive $60 in cash and $10 in Broadcom shares in the deal. That $70 per share price was higher than Qualcomm’s per share price on November 6th, when it popped above $65 per share early in the day before declining towards $62 by midday trading. According to Broadcom’s press release on the news, its proposal represents a 28 percent premium over the closing price of Qualcomm stock on Thursday, November 2nd.

East Palo Alto, CA-based web security firm Finjan Holdings recently filed a Form 8-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which disclosed a patent assignment agreement made with Armonk, NY-based information technology giant IBM (NYSE:IBM). Under the terms of the agreement, Finjan Blue, a newly formed subsidiary of Finjan, will acquire a series of IBM security-related patents with potential pathways for the IBM and Finjan to work collaboratively on development of those patented technologies.

In this post, we’ll analyze LinkedIn’s patent acquisition process and the results of its targeted buying program. While the increase in LinkedIn’s filings helped to grow the total patent portfolio, challenges remain. First, while organic filings tend to focus on LinkedIn’s core technology and therefore help a great deal with counter-assertion against potential competitors, they are less helpful when it comes to large corporate asserters further outside LinkedIn’s core technology area. Second, the priority dates on all the new filings are recent (after 2011). Earlier priority dates (old inventions) help the most in counter-assertion, but LinkedIn would have had to file for those patents in the 2000s. Fortunately, the market for buying and selling patents is robust and allows companies to fill in where they have weakness in their portfolios. Focused patent buying allowed us to build a counter-assertion portfolio to help bolster any negotiations.

Softbank’s acquisition of ARM Holdings is widely known and several blogs and articles have tried to explain the business background of the huge deal. Just following the BREXIT vote, one of the best-known (worldwide) United Kingdom-based high tech companies is leaving the for seemingly greener pastures. Despite the new owners’ assurances to leave the headquarters in the United Kingdom and promises to double the number of employees in five years, speculation persists. And, though much has been reported about the business deal, little has been said about how the acquisition changed Softbank’s IP portfolio.

Companies at the cutting edge of their industries have realized the immense value of their patent portfolios and are still trying to make the most of that value – but it is not easy. A semiconductor or electronics company can have tens of thousands of patents; finding the patents that are the most valuable is one of its biggest problems. These patents are needed to determine the strategy for patent sale, licensing or litigation, and without them the company is basically stuck and can’t move forward. The process is like sorting the grain from the chaff.

Over the past 18 months, our clients have begun to show greater interest in international patents (e.g. non-US). Increasing client interest in international patents corresponds with the general rise in importance of international patents (continuing ascension of the Chinese market, potential for unitary patent for Europe), more anti-patent owner decisions in the US, and greater patent litigation outside the US.…

My view is we have reached a time of strategic purchasing that we not seen or experienced previously. Here’s why: If you want to know the future, technically, you can’t. But, if you’d like to know about the patent property rights regarding future technologies, it’s easy. The patent applications being filed now and already issued will be those that are asserted over the next two decades. If your tech company hopes to be a part of that future, buying into that future, now, makes a certain amount of sense. It is only a question of price. Budgets are being put together, right now, to develop the contours of future technologies by virtue of R&D, acquisition of competitors, and targeting markets and products; it is reasonable that the very same budgeting process should be in place for acquisition of rights. Certainly budgets for patent filing are in place – these should include acquisition as well.

Senator McCain’s remarks related to defense acquisition reform generally, but more specifically related to the need for the Department of Defense to streamline acquisition of new, innovative technologies. McCain told the audience that ”our Defense Department has grown larger but less capable, more complex but less innovative, more proficient at defeating low-tech adversaries but more vulnerable to high-tech ones.” Indeed, with an agency as large as the Department of Defense, a woefully inadequate response to technological advances and adoption of cutting edge innovation should be anticipated.

There seems to be a popular belief that the market for patents is dead, but if you look at recent transactions through Q1 of 2015, there are at least some signs that the patent marketplace is becoming more active. There have been a number of high profile acquisitions in the pharmaceutical space over the last four months, and last week Sony acquired OnLive’s patent portfolio. Earlier today Akamai Technologies, Inc. announced that acquired Octoshape, which will give Akamai access to Octoshape technologies that optimize the quality of video streams for over-the-top content and to enable Internet Protocol television solutions.