Posts Tagged: "patent mass aggregators"

Supporting Proposed Rules on Disclosure of Real-Party-in-Interest

In the last five years, the patent market has undergone a change of seismic proportions. Patent rights are now regularly stripped from any underlying product and traded much like commodities in a largely unregulated market–the market for patent monetization. Regardless of what one thinks about the causes and implications of patent monetization, it is clear that this behavior is expanding at an explosive rate. In this rapidly shifting landscape, it will be critical for companies to be able to keep track, not only of simple ownership of patents, but also of actual control. With this new market for patent monetization, we currently have no way to accurately measure girth and no way to know what people are doing with the girth they have. This is why sunshine rules are so critical for grappling with the market and designing the rules that will ensure a competitive marketplace.

Landscape 2013: Who are the Players in the IP Marketplace?

The latest statistics show that the cumulative value of U.S. intellectual property is approximately $5.8 trillion (or 48.4% of GDP), and each year over half a million patent applications are filed, over a quarter million patents are issued, over 4000 patent infringement suits are filed and IP verdicts total over $4.6 billion with a median patent damage award of approximately $4 million. Against this backdrop, I now present an updated taxonomy containing 19 IP-related business models. The business models are in addition to the “traditional” operating companies and their “traditional” IP law firms. Further, while not pretending to be all-inclusive, a directory of players implementing one or more of these 19 IP business models is available for download at the end of this post.

Kodak Sells Patents to Intellectual Ventures, RPX for $525 Million

Eastman Kodak Company, the once mighty technology juggernaut that has fallen on hard times and found itself fighting to get out of bankruptcy, has completed a series of agreements that successfully monetizes its digital imaging patents. Under the agreements, Kodak will receive approximately $525 million, a portion of which will be paid by 12 intellectual property licensees organized by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corporation, with each licensee receiving rights with respect to the digital imaging patent portfolio and certain other Kodak patents. Another portion will be paid by Intellectual Ventures, which is acquiring the digital imaging patent portfolio subject to these new licenses, as well as previously existing licenses.

Patent Contingent Fee Litigation

In the last decade, a substantial market has begun to develop for contingent fee representation in patent litigation. Wiley Rein — a traditional general practice law firm with hundreds of attorneys practicing all areas of law — represented a small company, NTP, Inc., in its patent infringement lawsuit against Research in Motion, the manufacturer of the Blackberry line of devices. The lawsuit famously settled in 2006 for $612.5 million, and the press reported Wiley Rein received over $200 million because it handled the lawsuit on a contingent fee basis. And Wiley Rein is not alone in doing so. Many patent litigators around the country have migrated toward handling patent cases on a contingent fee basis.

Patent Mass Aggregators: The Giants Among Us

The types of returns promised to investors and the types of benefits offered to participants are also quite different from garden-variety non-practicing entities, as are some of the tactics used in organizing the entities and in asserting the patents. Finally, the scale itself is simply mind-boggling. Mass aggregators operate on a scale and at a level of sophistication and complexity that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. They have taken the prototype strategies pioneered by a prior generation of non-practicing entities and changed them into some of the cleverest strategies yet seen in the intellectual property rights field.