Records Broken at Live Patent Auction

Posted Tuesday, April 08, 2008 by Jim Ruttler.

Ocean Tomo® held another live patent auction on April 4, 2008 in San Francisco, California. Total reported sales were $19 million with average lot sales of around $370k each. One lot in particular sold for a record $6.6 million, the largest price ever paid for a portfolio of patents at a live auction event.

Independent inventors, especially in the software and internet technology fields, are finding that the live auction format is making it significantly easier to market patents. After all, prior to the live auction format, inventors had the burden of navigating the bureaucracies of companies and negotiating for licenses. Corporations often found it more economical to infringe on a patent, rather than purchase or license it, knowing that an independent inventor lacked the resources to bring a patent infringement suit. Now with live auctions, the jig is up. Companies can no longer infringe without recourse as a patent can quickly move from an independent inventor’s hands into a large company’s hands. And, the problem with a large company is that it does have the means to bring an infringement suit. Thus, companies that that previously ignored patents of small time inventors are now forced to bid or suffer the consequences.

Ocean Tomo Website

Quick Links

  1. Patent Applications
  2. Basic Intellectual Property Law Principles

Blog Archive