Patents have long been viewed as strategic assets. However, the last decade has witnessed the transition of patents from strategic assets to financial assets in the industrial sector. Patents are no longer used as a tool to keep the competitors at bay or to determine the next niche area for investing or directing the efforts of the R&D team, but also as financial tools for generating profits through licensing, and selling. Many big companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Sony, and Apple have a large percentage of their revenue derived from such licensing and selling of their patent portfolio. There are many "infamous" patent trolls also present in the market who have been active in creating a diverse patent portfolio and even more active in filing law suits and claiming infringement or royalty from players in the market. These trolls do not have any specific product to showcase and their business usually thrives on revenue generated by forcing companies to either enter into licensing deals or to face the wrath of law suit.
In a recent press release, it was reported that Nortel is planning to auction its patent portfolio. This news has caught the attention of many large companies, including trolls, who are eager to stock up their Intellectual Property assets and would be continuously monitoring how the entire event unfolds. Intellectual Ventures would be one of the players expected to be aggressive in buying these patents from Nortel. Many lawyers and patent attorneys, who specialize in patent valuation would be busy in evaluating and assessing the "monetization index" of these patents. Patent teams from all over would be engaged in going through the huge patent portfolio of Nortel and differentiating the useful and useless patents.
The following tables capture the patent portfolio and define the key technology areas covered by Nortel's Patents.
Number of Nortel Patents/Patent Applications Worldwide: 9486* as on June 28, 2011.
Top IPCs:
The IPC definitions can be accessed from this link: http://www.wipo.int/ipcpub/#refresh=page
Top US Class:
The US class definitions can be accessed from this link: http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/classification/
Some of the top inventors who have worked for Nortel in these technologies include:
TONG WEN , ZHU PEIYING , FONG MO-HAN , SYLVAIN DANY , MA JIANGLEI , ZHANG HANG , JIA MING , BESHAI MAGED E , LUCIDARME THIERRY , ROBERTS KIM B , BAKER JOHN S , HASSELHORN WALTER C , Read Clifford D , ALLAN DAVID , STRAWCZYNSKI LEO , KWONG HERMAN , AKHTAR HASEEB , BEN RACHED NIDHAM , AWEYA JAMES , BRUECKHEIMER SIMON DANIEL , PERSONS LAWRENCE M , MCCORMACK TONY , MONTUNO DELFIN Y , BRAGG NIGEL , ROBERTS KIM BYRON , OUELLETTE MICHEL , RABIPOUR RAFI , GRAVES ALAN F , VRZIC SOPHIE , BROWN MICHAEL , KHALIL MOHAMED , WU GENG , YOAKUM JOHN H , YU DONG-SHENG , LI JUN , NOVAK ROBERT , EPWORTH RICHARD EDWARD , CHHEDA ASHVIN , MAUGER ROY HAROLD , MUNTER ERNST A , O CONNOR NEIL , ASHWOOD-SMITH PETER , ROBINSON ALAN , STEER DAVID G , FELSKE KENT , STEER DAVID , WU SHIQUAN , JANG KE-CHI , XU HUA
It would be interesting to check how many of the above inventors still work for Nortel. If i were a large corporation, i would be certainly interested in pulling the above inventors into my R&D team.
It would be interesting to check how many of the above inventors still work for Nortel. If i were a large corporation, i would be certainly interested in pulling the above inventors into my R&D team.
*This figure does not include the patent applications that have not been published as on June 28, 2011
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