Posts Tagged: "Marathon Patent Group"

Marathon Patent restructuring will put Fortress subsidiary in charge of patent monetization

Marathon is transferring certain parts of its intellectual property portfolio to newly created special-purpose entities (SPEs), which would give greater control over patent monetization strategies to a financial partner of Marathon… DBD’s parent company Fortress Investment Group LLC, who has been making interesting forays into patent licensing operations in recent years. Marathon is only one of several patent monetization companies in which Fortress made investments through its DBD subsidiary.

Steve Brachmann

August 15, 2017

Have investors lost the appetite for public IP companies?

“I don’t think investors care about names,” Croxall said. “I think they care about results. I have the troll conversation, but it is never with investors. Are they getting smarter about the risk of going to trial? I think they have… I think you get punished more for losing than rewarded for winning.” Croxall also acknowledged that the troll issue seems to have penetrated into the jury box. Hartstein would later agree that public IP companies get punished at least twice as much with a litigation loss as compared with a litigation victory.

Gene Quinn

December 7, 2015

Have We Hit Bottom in the Patent Market?

The patent market had an amazing bull run from the late 1980’s through 2012. The peak was 2011 to 2012 when we saw a number of multi-billion dollar patent sales and patent-driven acquisitions. The patent market started slowing down substantially shortly thereafter. Many blame the America Invents Act (AIA), which introduced a variety of ways to inexpensively challenge the validity of patents in administrative proceedings at the patent office. All of a sudden the confidence that once a patent was issued it was valid was shaken. However, the AIA was only part of the problem.

Erich Spangenberg

November 3, 2015

PTAB refuses Volkswagen IPR petition against Marathon patent

In siding with the patent owner the PTAB explained that the petitioner insufficiently made a case that the claimed invention was obvious. A proper obviousness argument must articulate some rational underpinning to support a legal conclusion of obviousness. Unfortunately for Volkswagen, the PTAB saw only conclusions and impermissible hindsight in the IPR Petition. Ultimately, the PTAB was not persuaded that the Petition demonstrated a reasonable likelihood that Petitioner would prevail.

Gene Quinn

August 27, 2015

Exclusive Interview with Doug Croxall of Marathon Patent Group

Doug Croxall is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Marathon Patent Group, which is a patent acquisition and licensing company. I met Croxall in New York City in November 2014 at the IP Dealmakers Forum. Croxall has been successful in the patent monetization business for years and had a unique prospective on patents as an asset. “If you are going invest your family’s fortune, I don’t think you will put all your money in one equity,” Croxall explained on the panel so it is the same thing with respect to an asset or a portfolio of assets.” He would go on to say that Marathon Patent Group has learned from “what worked in other asset areas and applied it to this one.”

Gene Quinn

December 17, 2014

Public vs. Private IP Companies – Challenges and Opportunities

At the very beginning of the program Siegel, during his opening remarks, said: “At Acacia we are not in the litigation business, we are in the licensing business.” I know that many will shrug or laugh at the comment, but from what I know about Acacia if you care to dig underneath the surface and listen past the sound byte it is true. Siegel explained that there are real costs and real risks associated with litigation, so doing business together and licensing is always a preferable strategy. Of course, Siegel pointed out that there is still a reluctance by many entities to pay for intellectual property. Siegel is exactly correct. There are many companies, large companies who themselves are owners of very large patent portfolios, who are reluctant to pay for intellectual property rights even though they infringe. Somewhere along the way it seems that the narrative got away from the innovator and has been turned on its head.

Gene Quinn

November 10, 2014