CPA Global Launches Patent Renewal Monetization Program

Proprietary Analysis and Patent Scoring Methodology will Help Clients Evaluate IP Assets in Preparation for Patent Renewal or Sale

    - New offering comes as many companies streamline patent
      portfolios down to core assets to save on high expense of patent
      renewals

    - CPA Global's patent scoring system helps companies make best
      choices on whether to renew or abandon their patent assets

    - Firm partners with ICAP Ocean Tomo to bring together buyers
      and sellers of IP assets based on CPA Global's evaluation


CPA Global, the world's leading legal services outsourcing and IP management firm, has launched a new Patent Renewals Monetization program to help companies make informed decisions about which patents to retain and which to sell, and at what valuation. The offering, which combines automated analysis with in-depth expert advice, is available to all CPA Global patent renewals customers.

James Pohlman, CPA Global's Vice President, Patent Monetization, said companies streamlining their patent portfolio can take advantage of CPA Global's proprietary patent scoring system to assess the U.S. market value of patents considered for abandonment.

"Our scoring system is an important safety net and reality check, ensuring that clients considering abandoning certain patents are not selling or otherwise orphaning assets that remain potential revenue sources," Mr Pohlman said. "CPA Global offers recommendations on which patent assets to sell, analyzing the potential sale from the perspective both of our clients and would-be buyers in the marketplace."
CPA Global also announced a new partnership with ICAP Ocean Tomo, the IP brokerage division of ICAP, the world's leading interdealer broker. ICAP Ocean Tomo will work with CPA Global clients to determine the most advantageous approach for taking their IP assets to market.

"The partnership we've established with CPA Global brings together the leading intellectual property management services company and the global leader in intellectual property brokerage," said Dean Becker, CEO of ICAP Ocean Tomo.

"Together, we provide an unprecedented service allowing patent owners to see financial value beyond the patents they choose to maintain within their portfolios."
CPA Global's patent renewals monetization service is an extension of the firm's long-standing Patent Portfolio Optimization program, which uses sophisticated auditing appraisals and proprietary software to help clients obtain maximum value from their IP assets, either through sale (monetization) or enhanced protection in a portfolio.
Culling patents to lower expense and litigation risk

Buffeted by the recession, many IP-rich companies have been actively streamlining patent portfolios as a way of consolidating core asset holdings and also to reduce paying expensive patent maintenance fees. Some companies have also begun challenging their legal departments to be 'evergreen' - supporting themselves without a corporate budget - leading to increased patent sales, licensing, and where necessary patent abandonment.

Additionally, amidst a rise in merger-and-acquisition activity, newly combined companies are using their integration to aggressively downsize their patent holdings in order to increase efficiency and/or lower litigation risk

Mr Pohlman notes that while companies themselves determine which patents are to remain core parts of a portfolio, based on future business strategies, some firms without a true marketplace understanding of the value of their IP might designate for abandonment patents that could in fact have a meaningful place in a portfolio, or would produce substantial revenue on sale.

"Just because a company feels certain holdings are not worth the renewal fee, or are not litigation-worthy, it does not by any stretch mean they are value-less," said Mr Pohlman.

"We expect to see a major upsurge in so-called cherry-picking of patent assets in the next few years, particularly in such areas as life sciences and nanotechnology, green technology, entertainment and video technology, manufacturing and other sectors," Mr Pohlman added.

He noted that CPA Global has performed patent monetization analysis on more than 1.4 million patents in the information communication technology (ICT) sector.
Proprietary Patent Scoring Process

The linchpin of CPA Global's new monetization model is the company's proprietary patent scoring process, which checks the relative value of clients' patents against published U.S. patents, providing companies a reliable picture of patent values relative to the marketplace. The product of substantial research, this statistical process measures patent strength and economic value based on 25 parameters, then weighs each score against the scores of similar patents. Higher scores are generally an indication of higher sale values

After scoring, CPA Global provides strategic guidance on which patents to keep in a portfolio and which to put on the market, as well as determining the appropriate sales channel. Higher-scoring patents are sold via private sale and typically bring in six-figure prices. U.S. patents are currently eligible for CPA Global's scoring analysis, although similar international patents are likely to have similar scores.

The market is big even for small patents

So who is in the market for low-scoring patents that other companies don't want? The list is actually quite long, according to CPA Global:
    - companies looking to build a "firewall" of related patents
      around core IP assets;

    - start-ups needing intellectual property in hand to attract venture
      capital;

    - patent pools hoping to further secure and protect the IP assets they
      already own;

    - patent holding companies who may want to acquire as part of licensing
      and litigation strategies;

    - patent brokers who buy and then resell patents, a practice known as
      "catch and release"; and

    - governments, which buy up patents to benefit domestic companies, including helping defend them against infringement litigation.