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2024 Market Predictions

2024 Market Predictions

Hello all, They say when making predictions for the year, one should try to make those before March, so the predictions actually predate action.  Otherwise, they simply become self-fulfilling prophecies. Well, thanks to this being a leap year, today is the last day to...

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How is the Market Shaping Up?

How is the Market Shaping Up?

 Hello all, Next week, our team will be attending the 10th annual IP Dealmakers Forum in New York City. I have attended every single year since its inception and always look forward to great content and catching up with senior business leaders in the IP space. Erika...

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Patents 101

Patents 101

 Hello all, We are only weeks away from the US Thanksgiving holiday which officially kicks off the holiday season and often represents the last push to close deals before yearend. Apparently, both the judiciary and legislature decided it was a good time to get to work...

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Valuation or Value?

Valuation or Value?

Hello all, With the summer holidays in the rearview mirror, we can feel the buzz of a new fall season where everyone looks at those annual lofty goals and realizes that there are only 3 months left to achieve those. OMG! as my millennial kids would say… On our end, we...

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IP Cha-Cha-Cha

IP Cha-Cha-Cha

Hello all, As we reach the famous “dog days” of August and part of the world (aka Europe) unplugs for the month while the US keeps baking under the same heat dome, it is a good time to reflect on how things are shaping up on the IP market front. Certainly, a lot has...

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Summer Hopes

Summer Hopes

Hello all, I hope everyone is enjoying the first weeks of summer, despite the heat domes, the smoke from forest fires and other natural calamities that seem to have accelerated. The first few days of July were officially declared the hottest days on planet Earth ever...

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Why Bother?

Why Bother?

Hello all, In our last two columns, we covered several mistakes made by inventors and their legal counsel when drafting or prosecuting patents, as well as the many tools that defendants have at their disposal to invalidate them or otherwise emerge unscathed from an...

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What Did I Do Wrong?

What Did I Do Wrong?

Hello all, I am often asked why so many patents are invalidated or impossible to enforce. When I tell patent owners that we can really only transact 1-2% of the patents we review daily, they do not understand, which is legitimate. Some of it has to do with what the...

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Predictions for 2023

Predictions for 2023

Hello all, It’s been an active several weeks in the IP world and I will highlight a few noteworthy topics below. We are also pleased to report several new transactions detailed in our “Tangible IP News” section. Last, but not least, I offer my predictions on what I...

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2022 IN REVIEW

2022 IN REVIEW

Hello and a very Happy New Year to each of you. Our well wishes would come a bit belatedly if you are reading this in the Western hemisphere, and definitely a bit prematurely if you are in Asia. Either way, it is time to reflect upon 2022 and take stock of the current...

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Patent Monetization in a Recession

Patent Monetization in a Recession

Hello all, Happy Holidays to each of you. We have now survived Thanksgiving travel and Black Friday and we are gearing up for the final push to Christmas. Never a dull moment. In other parts of the world, China and Iran are (perhaps) realizing what happens when people...

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Gathering Clouds… Again

Gathering Clouds… Again

Hello all, It is back to school time and things are picking up again after the summer hiatus. A few weeks ago, I wrote a fairly meaty column reviewing the current state of the market and forecasting some gathering clouds. I suspect however that many of you were...

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Gathering Clouds… Again

Gathering Clouds

Hello all, Despite the relative quiet of summer, we’d be remiss to ignore the early signs of a certain “movement” favoring those dedicated (for at least the last decade) to weakening the US patent system. The clouds are indeed gathering over what has been a somewhat...

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Kicking the Can

Kicking the Can

Hello all, The lull of the early summer months provides a great distraction from the shock of recent events that saw the US Supreme Court issue 3 major decisions back-to-back. These decisions fundamentally impacted gun rights, the right to privacy (aka Roe v. Wade)...

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Build or Buy?

Build or Buy?

Hello all, This week was the annual gathering of the IP Business community at the IPBC Global conference in Chicago. I unfortunately had to skip this year, but there was a lot of interesting information coming out of the 2 day conference, mostly from IAM, the...

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Booster Shot

Booster Shot

Hello and Happy Valentine’s Day to all! Getting one’s booster shot has been the talk of the town. But who would have guessed that the IP Market would get a shot of its own last week? Yes, I am talking about the $600M patent divestiture recently announced by...

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The Blooming Phase of Patents

The Blooming Phase of Patents

Hello all, What do the Neelakurinji flower and a patent have in common? Read below to find out but, spoiler alert, it has to do with blooming… Let’s start with the latest development; earlier this week saw the USPTO director nominee Kathi Vidal appear in the US Senate...

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The Weaponization of Congress

The Weaponization of Congress

Hello all, We’ve witnessed an increasingly worrisome phenomenon in the US; interest groups are literally weaponizing Congress to advance their agenda in the usually non-controversial patent area (we knew of course this was happening in other areas). In the remaining...

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Is this Obama 2.0?

Is this Obama 2.0?

Hello all, Last weekend, I watched “ The Billion Dollar Code,” a 4-episode fictionalized series based on a true story. The series recounted the lawsuit brought forth by a small German startup (Art+Com) in 2014 against Google for infringing their patent. This patent...

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Decade of Stolen Dreams

Decade of Stolen Dreams

Hello all, September usually marks a return to normalcy, vacations are remembered in pictures, children return to school and work once again becomes the focus of your day. But this year feels different. The fatigue and frustration of the heaviness of the world hangs...

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Mid Year Review

Mid Year Review

 Hello and happy summer, With the first half of 2021 already in the books, this felt like the perfect time to pause for a moment and review the current IP market landscape. As our readers know, I focus on 5 criteria that have been fairly reliable predictors over the...

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Cutting Corners

Cutting Corners

Hello all, While many places around the world are battling a massive heat wave (108 F in Seattle???), a lot happened in the IP marketplace in the past few weeks that should leave inventors, well…fuming. It came both from Germany and the US and it is forcing us to...

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Inventor vs. Big Tech 2.0

Inventor vs. Big Tech 2.0

Hello all, Here in the US, the outlook is pretty positive these days. And, I must say, I took for granted the simple joy of a hug. For the more adventurous types, travel is slowly resuming with trips and conferences on the horizon. However, this is a stark contrast to...

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And Then, There Was One

And Then, There Was One

Hello all, A belated Happy Lunar New Year, Valentines Day, Presidents Day or Mardi Gras, depending on when and where you are reading this! We are rapidly approaching a full year of pandemic routine - and let’s be honest, most of us are well past the pandemic fatigue...

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This Game Has to Stop!

This Game Has to Stop!

Hello all, After a few weeks of quasi normalcy on the political front as this new US government works to actually govern, it almost feels like we can focus once again on minimizing the toll of the pandemic and rebuilding our economy. Lest most have forgotten, we still...

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What About My Freedom?

What About My Freedom?

 Hello all, With 2020 FINALLY behind us, and a few blissful days of hope in 2021, I think most of us saw a light on the horizon and believed 2020 was just a bad dream, a really really bad dream. 2021 is going to be great, right?... sigh. As we all recognize by now,...

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Got SEPs?

Got SEPs?

Hello all, In our previous column just two weeks ago, we examined how the change of guidelines by the USPTO could alter the patent landscape. Remember the ease at which companies could challenge the validity of patents was a great tool used widely by Big Tech to...

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Gloves Off for Big Tech

Gloves Off for Big Tech

Hello all, Since our August 20th column, a couple of major events took place that may impact things significantly, especially as it pertains to patent valuations. As you know from our periodic analysis of market factors affecting patents as an asset class, one factor...

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The Numbers Are In!

The Numbers Are In!

Hello all, As the world gradually experiments with the incremental reopening of global economies, no one really knows what the real impact of deconfinement will be. Simple things that only two months ago were considered perfectly routine activities now come with their...

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Innovating in Uncertain Times

Innovating in Uncertain Times

  Hello all, If you live almost anywhere on planet Earth, these past several weeks have probably been among the most disruptive in your life. Sadly, there is still much uncertainty as to what lies ahead. Nevertheless, we should count our blessings, as most of us...

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Short Stories

Short Stories

Hello all, I don’t know where the month of February went but we’ve sure kept busy! We announced a few days ago that we successfully brokered 3 licenses back to back for a small client’s portfolio and we have several more transactions closing in the next few weeks for...

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2020 Hindsight!

2020 Hindsight!

(You only get to make that joke once, so I just could not pass on the opportunity 😊) Hello all and Happy New Year/New Decade to you, whether it is the one that just started or, for our Asian friends, the one about to start. First the good news: we closed...

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Buyers’ Market No More?

Buyers’ Market No More?

Hello all, We are publishing this a little bit behind schedule due to the passing of a close family member and we will publish our short stories separately as soon as I can complete the hours of research it takes to aggregate them all.  But I do want to remind you in...

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November 8 Updates

November 8 Updates

Hello all, First, we recently announced that we have been retained exclusively to bring to market new patent portfolios belonging to Siemens and We Transfer. We also just released a large semiconductor portfolio originating from ST Micro, with about 150 assets in...

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The Case for Acquiring Patents

The Case for Acquiring Patents

Hello all, If the health of the IP market is directly correlated to the number of offers received on patent portfolios available for sale then, I would say our patient is doing much better than 6-12 months ago. We have, in recent months, received numerous offers on...

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September Uptick

September Uptick

Hello all, Well, it was another busy few weeks filled with IP market-related developments. Below is our “short stories” edition, which (as a reminder) we rotate along with our more “in depth” analyses like the one I wrote earlier this month. Please click on any story...

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Mid-Year Review

Mid-Year Review

Well friends… Summer is over! Which means it’s time to take a step back now that we have firmly closed the first half of the year (and are mid-way through Q3) and look at some indicators that tend to explain current and future market trends. When searching for...

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Summer Updates

Summer Updates

Happy summer everyone! I hope you are reading this on the beach or from some other exotic place recharging your batteries before the busy fall season. Going forward, I’m making a few changes to the newsletter. For starters, the column will be a bit shorter and...

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Patent Reform 2.0

Patent Reform 2.0

The latest Gallup poll shows that only 20% of the US population approves of the work being done by our US Congress. For comparison, half of the population believes in aliens…  As the saying goes, a bipartisan Congress can accomplish great things, except, it never...

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Are We Back to Square One?

Are We Back to Square One?

April 9, 2019 Maybe it was just too good to be true… After years of being on the receiving end of a patent system stacked against them, things were finally starting to improve for US inventors.  Under USPTO Director Iancu’s tireless crusade to restore faith in the US...

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State of the Union

State of the Union

To start us off and in case you missed it, last week, we reported yet another successfully brokered deal with a voluntary licensee. Second, we were recently retained by the prestigious National Research Council of Canada to advise them on their overall intellectual...

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A Year of Transition

A Year of Transition

A belated Happy New Year to all of you!  As I reflect upon this column, which has gone through various permutations over the last 7 years, I am amazed by how readership has grown organically from a dozen (including several family members 😊) to over 15,000...

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Mr. Iancu Goes to Washington

Mr. Iancu Goes to Washington

“Remarkably, in what I believe amounts to Orwellian ‘doublespeak,’ those who’ve been advancing the patent troll narrative argue that they do so because they are actually pro-innovation. That by their highlighting, relentlessly, the dangers in the patent system, they...

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Follow the Money

Follow the Money

If you’re curious as to whether the IP Market is trending up or down, you can use vector-based analysis on a series of indicators (as we did in our previous column) or you can simply follow the money. One may ask the question, “is the flow of money coming in, directly...

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Mid-Year Review

Mid-Year Review

Now that we have firmly closed the first half of the year and are mid-way through Q3, it is a good time to look at some indicators that tend to explain current and future market trends. Whenever I search for influencers of the IP marketplace, I generally look for the...

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The Soul of Patents

The Soul of Patents

The recent issuance by the USPTO of its 10 millionth patent marked a symbolic milestone. More importantly, it gave pause for many to reflect upon the fundamental question: why does one file for a patent?   Those, like us, who personally interact with inventors daily...

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Are we entering IP Market 2.0?

Are we entering IP Market 2.0?

Two weeks ago, the who’s who of the Intellectual Property business community descended on San Francisco to attend the annual IPBC Global 2018. It is at this conference that decision makers from various entities that comprise the IP market convene with the hopes of...

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Help is on the Way!

Help is on the Way!

  These were the words from new USPTO director Andrei Iancu when I spoke to him last Thursday at the AIPLA Spring meeting in Seattle (Tangible IP was a sponsor).  I’ll come back to this in a minute. By now however, anyone who follows the IP world (even distantly)...

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Has the tide just turned?

Has the tide just turned?

  First, the good news: last month, I commented about the trio of cases for the Federal District (which is the appeals division for all IP cases in the US) that seemed to open the first chink in the Alice armor. As a refresher, Alice is the US Supreme Court case...

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Has the tide just turned?

Is Alice back in Wonderland?

In this wonderful world of intellectual property, a lot can happen in the course of a month and this last month between our newsletters is no exception. So, where do we start? Let’s maybe launch with the latest news that the Trump administration’s new trade war is now...

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Tangible IP is the leader in the sale and acquisition of high-quality patents.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Mr. Carbonneau will be speaking at a virtual event this spring hosted by the Canadian Bar Association. He will focus on IP-backed financing and valuation. More details to follow.

Mr. Carbonneau will be speaking at a virtual event on May 14, 2024 hosted jointly by the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC) and McGill University. He will focus on IP Strategies for Business.

Mr. Carbonneau will be presenting again at the annual IPIC/McGill Intellectual Property Summer Course on July 18, 2024 in Montreal. He will focus on IP Valuation and Monetization.

Press & Media

IP Market Updates Celebrates 20,000 Subscribers

IP Market Updates Celebrates 20,000 Subscribers

Seattle – JULY 13, 2023. TANGIBLE IP, LLC, an international patent brokerage and Intellectual Property advisory firm headquartered in Seattle, with over 5000 patents sold, announced that it's montly publication, IP Market Updates, now reaches over 20,000 subscribers....

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How to Work with Brokers and Buyers

This article first appeared in the 2015 edition of the IAM Yearbook: Building IP value in the 21st century, a supplement to Intellectual Asset Management (IAM), published by The IP Media Group. To view the guide in full, please go to www.iam-magazine.com How to Work...

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Tangible IP Beefs Up Its Management Team

Seattle – October 3, 2014: Tangible IP Beefs Up Its Management Team TANGIBLE IP announced today that several senior and well respected industry experts have joined its management team. These additions will allow the firm to add varied and deep technical expertise to...

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