5 ms·
The company buying the patents is new with no history. Do any of the parties involved in financing the deal have a history of being litigious over patents? If
by andjd 5y ago
The company buying the patents is new with no history. Do any of the parties involved in financing the deal have a history of being litigious over patents? If the patents are generating royalties, this could just be a boring financial move where RIM gets a lump-sum cash infusion in exchange for a predictable, but finite, revenue stream.
There are many non-practicing entities that don't abuse their patents. ARM is an example.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rhino369 5y agoYou don't buy 600 million dollars of patents as an NPE without planning to shop around licenses with an implied threat of litigation. You don't have to be scumbags about it, but you are going to have to press your claims to make money back. I'd argue ARM isn't really an NPE. They actually sell useful designs that are actually implemented right? It's customers are paying for a design, architecture and software--not the freedom from being sued.
- The-Bus 5y agoThey may already have recurring revenue that justifies this price.
- netcan 5y agoBeing litigious and earning revenue from non-practicing patent ownership are fairly intertwined. Being a new company with no history is, likely, strategic. Patent wars between practicing entities tend to be multi-front. Each side brings its own war chest of patents claims. Settlements tend to be more of a cease fire than a permanent end. They agree to stop suing each other. Being non practicing means that a patent war can't interfere with your more important interests. Being clean slate means that whoever you sue can't return fire by going after the rest of your patent portfolio. "Patent trolling" isn't black or white definitionally, but it has earned its bad name. It's an ugly game of dirty tricks.
- mathattack 5y agoAll good points. And if this is a new entity, it likely isn’t bound by any “you don’t sue us, and we don’t sue you” agreements. It could be new money in play. Of course it could just be financial engineering, though I suspect that would look more like an asset backed loan.
- netcan 5y ago"liability engineering" perhaps.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoThe company may be new, but I guarantee you that it's the same old crowd of patent trolls. They will never give up until the patents are expired or certain East Texas judges retire.
- inetsee 5y agoI thought the rules were changed to make it harder for litigants to shop for a venue like East Texas?
- vmception 5y agoWhat I would like to see is what does a model licensing agreement look like? All we ever see is “threat of litigation by troll” “company takes stand against troll” But we have no clue how the negotiations went? We have no clue how many are agreed upon, we have no clue how many are tolerable small revenue splits or something else All we are left with are extreme positions that imagine every patent or litigant is an extortion racket and thats just negligent There is room for nuance by adults
- monocasa 5y agoI wouldn't consider ARM a non practicing entity.