The confusion around how to answer when someone asks the going rate for a patent in part stems from the common use of “price” and “value”nearly interchangeably in day-to-day conversations. Imagine you have found four patent families that address a specific risk to your business, and you are about to ask your boss to approve buying those patents for $2 million. Her questions might include, “What’s the going rate for patents?” Similarly, if you were working with your company’s accounting team and moving four patent families from your corporate parent to a subsidiary, the accounting department might ask, “What is the ‘fair market value’ of these patents for transfer pricing?
“Quickly Modeling Patent Market Prices.” Oliver et. al. IP Watchdog (September 2020), available here.