Our 2018 brokered market report was printed in the recent IAM Magazine January/February issue. As we have reported previously, 2018 saw a general uptick in the market.

Since we started tracking the secondary patent market in 2011, we have identified more than $5.3 billion worth of sold patent assets and seen more than $16.7 billion worth of patent assets offered to the market. That's a lot of deals being brought to the market on a regular basis and many of the opportunities come from brokers.

What causes operating companies to sell their patents? Our intuition tells us that patent sales take place when the seller is in financial distress or the company is underperforming. We asked ourselves whether data aligned with our intuition.