Senior monetisation specialist becomes latest experienced figure to depart IV
Cory Van Arsdale, chief revenue office at Intellectual Ventures and one of the driving forces behind its recent monetisation efforts is leaving the giant NPE. He is set to keep some ties to IV advising the business on a consultancy basis for at least the next year, but his departure effectively hands control of the company’s patent sales and licensing to Mathen Ganesan, executive vice president of the Invention Investment Funds.
Van Arsdale joined IV in 2010 from a consulting business which he co-founded and before that did stints at the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Sun Microsystems. He has taken an active role as the company has ramped up its rate of sales in recent years including the disposals of around 4,000 former Kodak patents and almost 1,000 former American Express grants to Dominion Harbor.
Ganesan, who was previously head of IV’s third invention investment fund in Dublin, moved to the US and the company’s Bellevue headquarters last year as part of a broad management shake-up. Since his move he has worked closely with Van Arsdale as the two combined to lead the business’s monetisation efforts.
Commenting on his departure, Van Arsdale told IAM that he had been thinking about his exit for sometime and Ganesan’s transition to the US had helped make the decision to go a little easier.
“Mathen moved over from Ireland about a year ago and the organisation has taken to him really well and it’s allowed me to think about what’s next,” he said. “I’ve been at IV for almost eight years now and I feel great about the business, it’s in a really good spot.”
IV is also in a very different spot than when Van Arsdale joined as the introduction of inter partes reviews and changes to the law around patent eligible subject matter have affected the rationale around owning and monetising large, disparate patent portfolios. That means that it has stopped buying assets for its most recent fund and changed its focus to a mix of licensing and sales.
On his plans for what he might do next, beyond consulting for IV, Van Arsdale said he didn’t expect to stay in the licensing business. “If I was going to do that I would stay here,” he commented. “I’m not going to go and acquire a bunch of patents and license them, I don’t want to do that.”
One constant that he said that was likely to remain a part of his career is deals. “I’m a deals guy, usually involving IP but more often, up until IV, involving products and development and technology transfer and a bunch of other things so I’ll go somewhere people need that skill.”