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It was sad to see what happened to Touchstone Semiconductors. They made some really excellent components with no equal. It seems like a VC pulled out, they wer

It was sad to see what happened to Touchstone Semiconductors. They made some really excellent components with no equal. It seems like a VC pulled out, they were forced to sell to a big company at a terrible price, and then that company discontinued all their products shortly after. https://www.edn.com/touchstone-semiconductor-falls-prey-to-hard-times/ https://www.edn.com/touchstone-semiconductor-falls-prey-to-h... https://www.eetimes.com/touchstone-semi-sells-assets-to-silicon-labs-for-1-5m/ https://www.eetimes.com/touchstone-semi-sells-assets-to-sili... https://www.silabs.com/documents/public/pcns/EOL-1609091-Touchstone.pdf https://www.silabs.com/documents/public/pcns/EOL-1609091-Tou...

anonytrary 6y ago
Realistically, what happens to the IP in this case? Can the original founders (or new party) just decide to restart and roll with the same IP and find new VCs? Is the IP locked up forever in the vaults of BigCo? This pattern of "acqukilling" a company seems like smelly, sometimes malicious pattern. I know that FAANG does this to social startups all the time.
- jbay808 6y ago
  All of Touchstone's patents would have been transferred to Silicon Labs, and they still own them despite discontinuing all the parts. The founders would probably find it very hard to try again.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Yep. Without a contract stating otherwise,[a] the purchase of a company generally transfers all IP of said company to the purchaser. This is especially true in bankruptcy proceedings where a company only buys a bankrupt one for the IP (branding/logos, trade secrets, etc.). [a] For example, an inventor could license their IP (the patent or whatever) to a company they create with a clause that the license can’t be sold (this has varying success from my understanding)
  - anonytrary 6y ago
    There needs to be a "movers" clause. Maybe it should be illegal to sit on IP over time without provably making progress towards said thing, or there should be some decay factor where part of your ownership goes back to public where it can be bought by someone else. The smartest and most willing and capable people should be the ones with the IP. and allowing IP to sit unused is an awful waste.
anitil 6y ago
It's sad that 'success' in a startup sometimes means that you get a payout, then everything you worked for over years gets put in a drawer somewhere and everyone gets let go. It's some sort of Pyrrhic success. As an aside, It's a story I've heard over here (Australia) quite a few times as well. It makes me wonder if we are capable of playing in the big leagues (Atlassian being an obvious exception here).

anonytrary 6y ago

Realistically, what happens to the IP in this case? Can the original founders (or new party) just decide to restart and roll with the same IP and find new VCs? Is the IP locked up forever in the vaults of BigCo? This pattern of "acqukilling" a company seems like smelly, sometimes malicious pattern. I know that FAANG does this to social startups all the time.

jbay808 6y ago
All of Touchstone's patents would have been transferred to Silicon Labs, and they still own them despite discontinuing all the parts. The founders would probably find it very hard to try again.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Yep. Without a contract stating otherwise,[a] the purchase of a company generally transfers all IP of said company to the purchaser. This is especially true in bankruptcy proceedings where a company only buys a bankrupt one for the IP (branding/logos, trade secrets, etc.). [a] For example, an inventor could license their IP (the patent or whatever) to a company they create with a clause that the license can’t be sold (this has varying success from my understanding)
- anonytrary 6y ago
  There needs to be a "movers" clause. Maybe it should be illegal to sit on IP over time without provably making progress towards said thing, or there should be some decay factor where part of your ownership goes back to public where it can be bought by someone else. The smartest and most willing and capable people should be the ones with the IP. and allowing IP to sit unused is an awful waste.

anitil 6y ago

It's sad that 'success' in a startup sometimes means that you get a payout, then everything you worked for over years gets put in a drawer somewhere and everyone gets let go. It's some sort of Pyrrhic success. As an aside, It's a story I've heard over here (Australia) quite a few times as well. It makes me wonder if we are capable of playing in the big leagues (Atlassian being an obvious exception here).