May 28, 20101

Nortel Patents Sale: The difficulty of putting a pricetag on a large portfolio

By: Ian McClure
nash2

The insolvent Nortel Networks Corp. has a very valuable patent portfolio.  But because so many suiters may be in the market to purchase the portfolio, the question has become how valuable?  Bloomberg ran a report about the portfolio, speculating that it may go for as much as $1.1B.  Joff Wild at the IAM blog has a good post on the validity of this figure, as well as an interesting comment from Andrew Watson of ipVA regarding possible interested parties.  This will be ... Read More

Categories: Today in IP
May 19, 20100

Tax and Intellectual Property: Forum Shopping for a Licensing Program

By: Ian McClure
nashflood

Tax incentives are always a large part of a corporate law practice.  Taxes can dictate the structure of a deal, help provide financing for an acquisition, or simply cause an organization to incorporate elsewhere because of better tax benefits.  When a company is beginning an IP licensing program, tax penalties, benefits, or other incentives could play an important role in forum shopping (if a company should have the luxury of being able to do so).  While many refer to those jurisdictions with ... Read More

Categories: Burgeoning Business, Investment Intelligence
May 9, 20100

The Defensive Patent License: A Clash Between Protection and Open Source

By: Ian McClure
pottery

I read an interesting article today in Network World titled "The Defensive Patent License makes patents less evil for open source".  The article describes the efforts of two law professors and directors of UC Berkeley's Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic to create a Defensive Patent License (DPL).  According to the article, the DPL is supposed to create protection mechanisms for open source practitioners in the software industry from NPE's.  While the article reflects archaically upon NPE's as "trolls" and states ... Read More

Categories: Patent Prospects