"We acquire patents – or in certain cases, patent rights – from sellers (including individuals, corporations, and NPEs) in the open market and, as appropriate for our members, while target patents are in the midst of assertion. We are building a defensive aggregation that covers a wide range of our members’ products and services."

This company purchases patents for their members pre-emptively or as they state subsequent to implied legal action of the holder asserting the patent.

Someone like Sam might not need to pool resources by joining a group and might be able to acquire eDigital's patents on their own.

So yes, I'd imagine buying out a patent (which could represent an entire company's "assets") has been already done but there are no specifics. Just that statement.