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Patent Buying Programs

Buying

Companies often need to strengthen their patent portfolios for cross-licensing negotiations, bringing a lawsuit, or securing freedom to operate. Buying patents is the fastest way to strengthen a portfolio.

A patent purchasing program usually takes 6 months to a year and follows the process described below.

Find Patents of Interest

To find patents of interest, we iterate through the following steps:

  • The client describes their patent purchasing needs: target technologies; target infringing companies or products; number of patents; countries where they want coverage; quality of patents; and budget.
  • We search patent databases and screen the results to produce a list of candidate patents.
  • The client reviews the patents, confirms which patents are of interest, and, if necessary, refines parameters for searching and screening.

The output is a list of candidate patents for purchase.

Confirm Owners’ Willingness to Sell

We contact the owners of the identified patents and ascertain if they are willing to sell.

Perform Due Diligence

For patents available for sale, the client usually engages legal counsel to give an opinion on the validity of the patent and the scope of the claims.

Negotiate and Conclude Purchase Agreement

We then help the buyer negotiate the price and terms and conditions of purchase. The buyer’s name can be kept confidential until late in the purchase process.

Why Work with Us?

  • We are highly experienced at patent searching and screening, having done many of these projects. We can fine-tune the searching and screening to meet the buyer’s exact needs.
  • We work globally, contacting patent owners wherever they are located.
  • We ensure that the buyer’s name is kept confidential until the buyer allows us to disclose it, which is often in the final stages of negotiation with patent owners.
  • We are compensated on a success-fee only basis.
FAQ

Ans. Probably not. Given the vast number of technical fields, it is unlikely that any broker would currently be selling patents of interest. It is more effective to do a patent search, find suitable patents, then contact the patent owners (either directly or through a third-party such as a broker) and ask if the owner would be willing to sell the patents of interest.
Ans. A patent purchasing program usually takes 6 months to a year.
Ans. Buying patents is faster than applying for and obtaining patents. Therefore, buying patents can plug gaps in a company's patent portfolio and complement a company's research and development and patent application program.
Ans. Many companies purchasing patents do not want to disclose their name. Therefore, they work through a broker or other third-party to contact patent owners. Depending on the level of confidentiality required, the transaction can be structured so that the seller does not know the buyers indentity until just before the transaction closes, or even until after the transaction closes. We have various solutions to maintain buyer confidentiality.
Ans. First, have clear objectives. What are the business objectives? What are the legal objectives? From this, derive the parameters of the patents you want to buy: number of patents, technical fields, evidence of use required, level of legal due diligence required. Then, set up a clear buying process. The process iterates through a funnel of successive screenings and negotiations with patent owners. Finally, make sure you have allocated budget, resources, and time for the project and do a sanity check with someone who has experience in these projects.