Over recent years a number of new business models for making money out

of IP have emerged and along with them have come the IP intermediaries.

They may not be universally loved, but they show no signs of going away.

In fact, we can expect to see many more evolve

Intellectual Asset Management February/March 2008 53

Feature

By Raymond Millien and Ron Laurie

Patent licensing and enforcement

companies (PLECs)

These are entities that own one or more

patent portfolio, attempt to license them

through targeted letter-writing campaigns and

then file patent infringement suits against

those letter recipients who refuse to enter

into non-exclusive licences. Those that

practise this business model are often called

(rightly or wrongly) patent trolls.

In some cases, the PLECs have

purchased the patents they are asserting

and, in other cases, the PLEC entity is

actually founded by the inventor(s) of the

asserted patent portfolio (although in the

latter case, such entities are not technically

intermediaries). PLECs therefore generate

revenue both from licence fees and from the

annual US$3.4 billion IP awards and

settlements market.

Prime examples of PLECs include Acacia

Research, Fergason Patent Properties,

Lemelson Foundation, LPL Financial, NTP,

Patriot Scientific, RAKL, TLC and TPL Group

http://www.ipcapitalgroup.com/thoughtleadership/IAM-Meet_the_Middlemen.pdf