Business-Focused IP Services
With the right approach, IP can be a solid business asset—particularly for growing companies in the tech space. We help clients build strong IP portfolios by evaluating their existing patents, identifying opportunities to get more out of IP and addressing competitive risks that might be around the corner.
Whether we’re brokering a patent deal, supporting patent defense or counter assertions, planning next steps for patent monetization or helping you understand where to start building your portfolio, we create a clear plan for action while keeping your business goals in mind.
We know our way around the tactical aspects of IP. More importantly, we know what those tactics can mean for your business. We can help you understand where you are today and how to navigate to where you’d like to be.
“The ROL Group has helped us take a different view on how we think about our patent strategy. It isn’t just about building a strong portfolio to secure near term and long term competitive advantage. It’s also about building an integrated portfolio that can achieve our business goals. Patents are integrated into our overall strategic plan from product development to commercialization.”
Patent Buying
Buying patents can help shore up your patent defense for counter assertion, or strengthen your competitive advantage by rounding out your portfolio. Selling can generate immediate revenue.
We have helped a variety of clients from some of the largest technology companies to successful startups with purchases across social networking, mobile, instant messaging, video streaming, digital rights management (DRM), semiconductors, networks and optical, security and more.
Using our experience and proprietary database of more than 14,700 patent purchase deals, we can help you:
- Set and refine your buying criteria.
- Estimate the number of patents in the open market that fit your buying criteria.
- Identify and negotiate the purchase of patents of interest by working our network with over 100 sellers and brokers, or by reaching out to specific patent owners.
- Provide fact-based pricing guidance.
- Build financial models evaluating the impact of buying patents.
- Perform due diligence on potential deals.
- Negotiate and close purchases.
When it comes to buying and selling patents, we help find a fit for your business and make sure the price is right.
“No patent is perfect. It takes a responsive, knowledgeable team like the ROL Group to ask the tough questions to close the deal.”
Corporate Patent Assertion Defense
Large corporate patent asserters are one of the greatest patent threats to fast growing companies. Defending against corporate assertions requires a team with specialized knowledge to help protect your fiscal interests and get you back to what matters as quickly as possible.
We have been engaged to defend against some of the largest corporate patent asserters in the world. Our approach focuses on the help you need:
- Engagement Plan and Expectation-Setting: We help the internal team understand the facts and set up a negotiation plan engaging the corporate asserters while reducing the risk of litigation.
- Defense against Specific Assertions: We perform financial analysis, claim chart analysis, prior art review and exhaustion analysis to strengthen your defensive position.
- Counter Assertion Development and Execution: Either within your own portfolio or purchasing assets, we can help present effective counter assertion patents to reduce or eliminate the corporate asserter threat.
- Timelines: Working together, we set expectations for how the defensive plan plays out.
“It takes technical depth and creativity to dramatically change the outcome of litigation. The ROL Group successfully sought out and bought patents that changed the outcome of our counter assertion to a reasonable figure.”
Patent Valuation
Need to know what the price of a bundle of patents is? Whether you are buying, selling, evaluating the price of assets in M&A, bankruptcy, or even looking for an internal transfer price, we have the experience and data to support a market price valuation.
With our proprietary database of over 14,700 patent purchase deals, we can find comparable deals and provide you with a data-driven market price. Our data has been used for more than ten years to create the leading secondary patent market reports (download the 2019 patent market report here).
From only a few patents to portfolios of thousands, whether you are determining a price for an SEC filing, bidding on assets in a bankruptcy, or selling patents, we have valuation solutions that fit your needs.
“It is rare to come across the type of industry expertise that Richardson Oliver possesses. They turn patent data into actionable and strategic advice.”
Patent Monetization
Patent monetization is more than just building a portfolio and licensing your patents. It’s about understanding how to identify high value patent assets, and then decide how to make those patents work for your company’s bottom line. Our proprietary VIP process allows us to efficiently and effectively identify the assets in your portfolio that are likely to be most important to your monetization plans. With our process, we take the ‘art’ of patent valuation and turn it into a ‘science’ so your patent sales and licensing models are supported and you target the allocation of your budget to build a more powerful portfolio.
Patent monetization is a business decision—you need to understand the different models available to you, and the risks and rewards associated with each option. We have the experience to walk you through a variety of monetization models and then help you select the best fit with your industry and corporate culture. Our data-driven VIP approach to monetization allows you to empirically evaluate your options and make informed choices about how to best leverage your portfolio.
From sales to licensing, litigation to serving as expert witnesses, our clients trust us to know the ropes, get creative and get results.
“The ROL Group provides the knowhow of a big firm but with the agility and cost-effectiveness we needed while creating an actionable roadmap for our spin out.”
IP Portfolio Building
A strong IP portfolio can be the backbone of a successful business. We help our clients make smart choices by conducting an IP checkup to identify high-value patents in their portfolios, validate and refine their processes, incorporate patents in budgeting and forecasting and realize greater value from their patenting activities. We also help our clients consider how they can leverage licenses, trademarks and other forms of IP to build a comprehensive matrix of IP protections.
Our roster of clients covers everything from software to military, and includes startups and large, established businesses alike. As experts in portfolio management, we have:
- Built targeted patent development programs resulting in approximately $911M in patent license bookings.
- Advised a large military contractor preparing for a spinout. We identified key inventions, mapped those on to the core and vertical markets, and set the plan for the post spinout activity.
- Prepared a software startup for potential assertions in a highly litigious space by helping them refocus their patent spending—including specific decision criteria for patent filings.
- Shared patent portfolio management techniques with a large open-source company so they could get more value.
- Helped startups to develop a right-sized IP program and strategy.
“We engage with experienced external subject matter experts. The ROL Group provides us with relevant and actionable advice.
IP Licensing & Transactions
A licensing program with the right terms, market and pricing drives positive business results. We have significant expertise in negotiating and interpreting licensing terms to help companies drive value and reduce risk through robust licensing and initiatives.
Among our clients, we have advised a publicly managed, but privately funded organization on a variety of issues, including: records retention/management/litigation holds, website terms of use and privacy policy development and contract negotiation with vendors. We have advised a small, independent business toward resolving a trademark dispute with a much larger company, and have supported numerous trademark license agreements.
While we are a team of lawyers, we think beyond the legal aspects of a licensing program. The right terms can certainly help protect a company’s interests, but we like to aim higher. We help our clients achieve success by digging into the market realities and demand, and we look at purchasing behavior to create a comprehensive, high-value program.
“With a winning combination of both technical and business acumen, the ROL Group has the knowhow to cut deals that make sense for both parties. The ROL Group also conducts skillful negotiations that can only come from being intimately involved in varied situations.”
Case Studies & Publications
“Given the current patent market, it is now more important than ever to partner with groups, such as the ROL Group, that have worked in house. The information they provide is based on their awareness through experience of what we need to know internally to make decisions faster and more efficiently. They know what we need.”