Resources for Patent Owners

Are you looking for an IP broker to monetize your patents?

As a premier patent brokerage firm, we are contacted regularly by companies or intermediaries who want to acquire patent portfolios through us. In most cases, we can obtain a license grant back to the seller, so divesting patents doesn’t need to be limited only to those inventions that you are no longer practicing yourself.

How to submit a patent proposal:

 

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Step 1

Review all the criteria for a successful patent proposal. Tangible IP receives a high volume of requests that are not eligible for brokerage and we want to make sure we can get you the desired result.
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Step 2

Complete the patent intake form. The confidential patent intake form includes important information in evaluating your portfolios such as patent numbers, encumbrances, and marketability.

Step 3

Send the completed form to info@tangibleip.biz with the subject “Completed Patent Questionaire” Because of the high volume of inquiries we can not review patents that don’t complete these steps. Thank you for your understanding.

Criteria for Patent Proposal:

 

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The portfolio must contain at least five issued (or allowed) US patents.

There is less of a market for smaller patent portfolios. Furthermore, a “Patent pending” rarely sells as your rights are still unknown (i.e. claims are still under negotiations with the USPTO).

 

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The patent(s) should be practiced by the industry.

Patents are a right to exclude others from using an invention. As a result, they sell primarily for their assertion value and the presence of potential infringement by others in your industry is a key factor. If you do not believe anyone is practicing your patent(s) after doing a thorough search, then no one probably is. If you do not know how to search for this information, we can do it for you for a fee, as this requires several hours of work form our highly skilled technical experts.

 

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The larger the patent family, the better.

Single patents are almost impossible to sell as the rate of invalidation of challenged patents in courts is relatively high (about 70%). A patent family is comprised of patents that are either Continuations, Continuations in Part (CIP) or Divisionals of a parent patent, meaning they all point back to the original patent you filed and simply contain additional claims.

 

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It is preferable to have at least one pending Continuation (or CIP or Divisional) of an US issued patent still active.

By keeping the initial application alive, buyers may continue to obtain new claims tied to the original invention (and priority date).

 

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Filing Date matters and the earlier the filing date of the patent, the better.

All other things being equal, a patent filed in 2005 is more likely to be construed broadly and less prone to be invalidated by prior art than a more recent filing. At the same time, any patent that is about to expire (i.e. less than 2 years of a term) is going to lose much of its value on the secondary market.

 

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Foreign counterparts are preferred and add country specific coverage for the technology.

Buyers prefer to see asset coverage in several major markets. This is particularly important when the buyer is an operating company. The most important countries in this regard are currently Germany and China.

 

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Maintenance Fees must be current and the patent in force.

All maintenance fees must be paid for up to and during the sales process. Patents that have been abandoned for any reason or are about to expire rarely sell.

 

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