IP-related statistics from the recent past

A selection of key IP facts and figures, as reported by IAM and other sources

Table 1. Stock performance of selected publicly traded IP-centric companies, 2014

Source: Google Finance

* Inventergy stock began trading on NASDAQ on June 9 2014 after merger with eOn Communications

** CopyTele changed its name to ITUS Corporation on September 2 2014

*** Marathon Patent Group stock began trading on NASDAQ on July 28 2014

Tables 2a and 2b show the entities with the highest volume of in-bound patent assignment transactions (assignee table) and out-bound patent assignment transactions (assignor table), as recorded at the USPTO. These results are calculated by aggregating the number of transactions completed by an assignee/assignor in November and December 2014.

One transaction may include multiple patents, patent families and patent portfolios. Many companies create numerous holding vehicles to house their different IP portfolios; this is why similar company names appear multiple times in the tables.

Table 2a. Top 30 patent assignees by number of transactions, November-December 2014

#	Assignee entity	Number of assignments transacted
1	Google Technology Holdings LLC	81
2	Thomson Reuters Global Resources	60
3	National Institutes of Health (NIH), US Dept of Health and Human Services (DHHS), US Government	53
4	Motorola, Inc	47
5	Inventor Holdings, LLC	46
6	International Business Machines Corporation	42
7	Intel Corporation	33
8	Energy, United States Department Of	32
9	Nokia Corporation	31
10	Dow Global Technologies LLC	30
11	Qualcomm Incorporated	29
12	L-3 Communications Corporation	28
13	Walker Digital, LLC	28
14	Microsoft Corporation	26
15	Sony Corporation	26
16	NEC Corporation	24
17	Covidien LP	23
18	Siemens Aktiengesellschaft	23
19	The Dow Chemical Company	23
20	Japan Display Inc.	22
21	Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd	22
22	Henkel Corporation	21
23	The Regents of the University of California	21
24	Novartis AG	20
25	Canon Kabushiki Kaisha	19
26	Google Inc	19
27	Tellabs Operations, Inc	19
28	DEKA Products Limited Partnership	18
29	Huawei Technologies Co, Ltd	18
30	Orange	18

Source: ktMINE (www.ktmine.com)

Table 2b. Top 30 patent assignors by number of transactions, November-December 2014

#	Assignor entity	Number of assignments transacted
1	L-3 Communications Corporation	25
2	ASAN Laboratories Company (Cayman), Limited	13
3	Searete LLC	12
4	Madison Capital Funding LLC	12
5	Harvard University	12
6	Wintek Corporation	10
7	Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc	9
8	Grain Processing Corporation	8
9	Comerica Bank	8
10	Liang, George	7
11	Sager, Adam D	6
12	Henkel Corporation	6
13	Sony Computer Entertainment Inc	5
14	Rill, Chris I	5
15	EJ Brooks Company	5
16	Bank Of America, NA	5
17	Summer, Elizabeth J, Dr	4
18	Kent Nutrition Group, Inc	4
19	Jensen, Charles E	4
20	Infosys Limited	4
21	Industrial Technology Research Institute	4
22	Gilchrist, James P	4
23	Emory University	4
24	Dyadic International, Inc	4
25	Chang, Chao-Chin	4
26	Brunsell, Dennis A	4
27	AT&T Properties, LLC	4
28	AT&T Corp	4
29	McNeely, Michael	3
30	Lovelace, Wayne	3

Source: ktMINE (www.ktmine.com)

Table 3. Selected IP-driven deals of 2014, as reported by the IAM blog

Date	Parties	Deal value (where known)	Details
January 2014	Ericsson and Samsung Electronics	(See details)	Cross-licensing agreement that “will impact Ericsson sales and net income in Q4 2013 by SEK4.2 billion and SEK3.3 billion respectively”, according to Ericsson
	Hewlett-Packard and Qualcomm	Undisclosed	HP sells Qualcomm 2,400 mobile-related patents and applications, including 1,400 US assets, relating to the Palm portfolio and webOS operating system it acquired in July 2010
	Google and Lenovo	$2.9 billion	Google sells Motorola Mobility – including 2,000 patents – to Lenovo. Deal includes a licence to 15,000 Motorola patents retained by Google
February 2014	IBM and Twitter	$36 million	IBM sells 900 patents and applications to Twitter
	Alcatel-Lucent and Sound View Innovations	Undisclosed	Alcatel-Lucent assigns around 500 patents to same management team behind Round Rock
	Andrea Electronics and Fortress Investment Group	$7 million and rising, depending on monetisation revenues	Fortress lends Andrea $4 million against its patent portfolio plus pays a further $3 million for a share of future IP monetisation revenues
March 2014	Quanlin Paper (aka Tranlin Paper) and China Development Bank-led consortium	Rmb7.9 billion ($1.3 billion)	Loan to Quanlin secured against 110 of its patents and 34 of its trademarks
	Unwired Planet and Lenovo	$100 million	Unwired Planet sells Lenovo 21 patent families relating to 3G, LTE and other telecoms technologies; also licenses the remainder of its portfolio to the Chinese company
April 2014	NEC and Lenovo	Undisclosed	NEC sells Lenovo a portfolio consisting of over 3,800 patent families, including assets relevant to 3G and LTE standards
	Hon Hai Precision Industry and Google	Undisclosed	Google buys portfolio of communications-related patents from Hon Hai
September 2014	Powerwave and Intel	Undisclosed	Intel acquires 1,400 patents from Powerwave
October 2014	MedTech Development and Marathon Patent Group	$10 million	Marathon acquires three patent portfolios from MedTech Development relating to kyphoplasty, intervertebral inserts and heart valve replacement technology
	IBM and GlobalFoundries	$1.5 billion	IBM pays GlobalFoundries to take on its semiconductor business, including “thousands of patents”
	Rohm and Wi-LAN	Undisclosed	Rohm Semiconductor transfers a patent portfolio to Wi-LAN and will share in any licensing revenues the Canadian NPE is able to raise from it
November 2014	Leadcore Technologies and Beijing Songguo Electronics	Rmb103 million ($16.8 million)	Leadcore (a subsidiary of Datang Telecom) transfers 4G-related technology to Beijing Songguo (reportedly controlled by Xiaomi)
December 2014	Rockstar and RPX	$900 million	RPX subsidiary purchases Rockstar's portfolio of 4,000 patents that were previously owned by now-defunct Nortel

IP-related statistics from the recent past

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