“Inside the 2016 Brokered Patent Market.” Richardson et al. IAM Magazine Vol 81 (January 2017)

In our continuing series of annual publications on the activity in the secondary patent market, we see that the only constant is change. Although asking prices have stabilized, sales are down, bringing the value of the market down to $165 million from $233 million last year. However, the launch of both IAM Market and the Industry Patent Purchase Program (IP3) has introduced new transaction opportunities. At the same time, the impact of negative patent decisions is becoming apparent as non-practicing entities (NPEs) pull back from the market. For the first time, purchases by corporations have exceeded NPE purchases. Even the biggest NPEs have been affected, with RPX succeeding Intellectual Ventures (IV) as the new buying leader. Further, the data shows that the US Supreme Court’s decision in Alice has crushed much of the nascent financial technology (fintech) patent market and affected software package sales rates. Finally, we received better litigation data this year, and it appears that the litigation risk from sold patents is much higher than previously reported – you may want to reconsider your risk models and membership of defensive aggregators.

“Inside the 2016 Brokered Patent Market.” Richardson et. al. IAM Magazine Vol 81 (January 2017), available here.