Posts Tagged: "IP Exchange"

IPXI to Launch First Offering on Exchange

Today, IPXI is announcing a signature event to begin marketing the first Unit License Right™ (ULR™) contract offering to be listed on the Exchange. This first offering of its kind will enable operating companies, investors and other market participants to buy and sell ULR contracts to use a portfolio of more than 600 patent assets, including 225 granted patents worldwide, related to organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology for display screen applications. The portfolio is the result of nearly 20 years of research in the field by a market leader. IPXI will conduct two public web-based presentations, the first of which will be on June 5, 2013, at 10 a.m. CT, that will unveil the OLED ULR contract offering, present important offering details and mark the beginning of the marketing campaign leading to trading on the Exchange. Those interested in participating in the webinar can register here. Participants will have the opportunity to submit questions and comments prior to and during the webinar, which will be addressed as time permits following the presentation.

DOJ Says IP Exchange Licensing Model is Pro-Innovation

IPXI is the first financial exchange that facilitates non-exclusive licensing and trading of intellectual property rights with market-based pricing and standardized terms. Earlier this week word came from the Intellectual Property Exchange International Inc. (IPXI) that the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division issued its Business Review Letter (BRL) upon the culmination of its eight-month review. The DOJ believes that the IP Exchange business model proposed by IPXI is capable of producing market efficiencies in the patent licensing arena and is likely to be pro-innovation. Although no permission is required of the DOJ before IPXI opens its exchange, having this review of the DOJ Antitrust Division complete has to make IPXI and Exchange participants much more at ease as the move closer toward their attempt to revolutionize IP licensing.

IP Exchange Brings Market Principles to Patent Rights Acquisition

It is also probably correct to say that the current business model for licensing technologies is extremely inefficient, not only because of the lack of a central clearinghouse, but because many of those who would be most interested in acquiring rights to exciting new technologies are really too small to attract the interest of patent owners. Even if they are large enough to attract interest from patent owners it take real time and real money to acquire rights. You don’t simply walk into a neighborhood bodega and order the rights to X technology for Y dollars, put it into your knapsack and walk away. Negotiations are hardly standard, must take into account multiple unique scenarios and are like any other business deal — unique. That requires attorneys to get involved and we all know what happens then, right? Too frequently attorneys get in the way of doing a deal rather than facilitate one.

Will an Intellectual Property Licensing Exchange Work?

Preventing artificial supply-side constraints? Now my spidey-senses are activated. That sure has a familiar ring to it, doesn’t it? I am skeptical about the desire to eliminate market inefficiencies when combined with simultaneous attempts to drive down royalty payments, thereby compensating innovators only for some perceived benefit to the ultimate consumer. The goal of the first, to reduce inefficiencies in a bilateral licensing negotiation is laudable, but minimizing the “artificial supply side constraints” based on the market as viewed by the ultimate consumer is a recipe for undervaluing innovative value-adds. And let’s not forget that some (perhaps many) of these value-adds mean the difference between having desirable functionality or not, and having a viable product or not.