Is The Economy Taking A Bite Out Of Abusive Patent Lawsuits?

from the one-can-hope... dept

We've never been a fan of Ocean Tomo, the "patent auction" shop that was seen as something of a clearing house for lawyers and patent hoarders looking to buy up patents to squeeze money out of other companies. However, in February, we wrote about an article in the Chicago Tribune insisting that the tough economy was increasing patent sales as companies looked to squeeze more value out of their patent portfolios. We questioned the article, noting that it showed absolutely no proof whatsoever that sales were up -- other than a claim (with no data) from an Ocean Tomo exec, who had every incentive to make people believe that sales were up.

But, in reality, it turns out sales aren't up. They're way, way, way down.

Joe Mullin writes about the latest Ocean Tomo auction that can reasonably be termed a total disaster after sales didn't just fall, but fell off a cliff:

While some folks I spoke to before the auction said they expected sales this year to be down by as much as 50 percent from last year, the final results were much worse. Friday's auction took in just under $2.9 million--more than 80 percent less than the roughly $17 million in patent sales generated by the company's San Francisco auction last year.

Out of more than 80 lots of patents on the block, only six sold. (An Ocean Tomo auction "lot" can include a single patent, several patents, or a portfolio of patents in related technology.) Ocean Tomo tacks on a 10 percent fee paid by buyers, and also charges fees to sellers, meaning the company probably took in less than $1 million for itself....

Ocean Tomo CEO James Malackowski looked a bit shaken by the end of the day.

"Obviously the market has become more selective," he said in brief concluding remarks.

That, of course, is exactly the opposite of what Ocean Tomo was telling reporters just a few weeks ago (and those reporters repeated it without question).

In the meantime, Saul Hansell of the NY Times, notes that one of the very few buyers was RPX, a company we covered last year, which is still insisting that its business model is never to sue for infringement but to simply let tech companies "license" its portfolio as a way of having ammo against other patent infringement lawsuits. It's sort of "Intellectual Ventures-lite." This was the original business plan of IV, but no one really believes that IV won't eventually sue -- and I'd imagine the same is true of RPX. At some point, its A-list investors will demand a bigger return, and using the portfolio to sue will just be too tempting.

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Are Intellectual Property Sales Growing In The Recession?

from the evidence-please dept

The Chicago Tribune has an article claiming that intellectual property sales are "growing" despite the recession, as companies look to sell off what they're not using. Except... the article doesn't present any evidence whatsoever. It simply quotes some execs at Ocean Tomo, the IP auction house who has a vested interest in getting more companies to "sell" their patents. It's pretty weak that the Chicago Tribune is effectively publishing a press release for Ocean Tomo, never once substantiating the headline or the claims from Ocean Tomo execs. I don't doubt that some companies will grow more desperate and may resort to trying to "sell" useless patents, but if the article (and Ocean Tomo execs) are going to claim it as fact, you'd think they'd present some evidence to back it up.

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Ocean Tomo Patents Being Used To Shake Down Companies That Have Online Recommendations

from the ebay-for-patent-trolls dept

Ocean Tomo is a company that's been around for a few years, trying to establish itself as the auction house for patents. I've already made clear how troubling I believe its business model to be, but the company always tries to put a friendly face on it, claiming that it's not about aiding so-called "patent trolls" but actually reducing the problem of patent trolling. However, that (of course) isn't what's actually happening. A patent on personal recommendation systems ("if you bought x, you'll like y") was bought via Ocean Tomo by what seems likely to be a bunch of lawyers under the company name Quito (though, it's not entirely clear who's involved) and is now being used in a lawsuit against thirteen big internet companies that employ any type of rating system. The companies being sued are: Netflix, Amazon, Yahoo, RealNetworks, last.fm, Pandora Media, Slacker Inc., Veoh, Hulu, NBC Universal, CBS, News Corp., and Strands.

As you look through that list, you'll recognize that some have done significantly innovative work in taking the concept of an online recommendation system and actually making it useful. The simple idea of doing recommendations is pretty straightforward. Making it work well? Not so much. Hell, that's why Netflix is offering $1 million to anyone who can improve their recommendation engine by just 10%. The basic ideas expressed in the patent are not where the value in these recommendation systems lies. It's in the actual effort of figuring out how to make them work better. This patent has nothing to do with the actual success of a recommendation system, but the holders of it may now get a pay day just for holding the patent, thanks to Ocean Tomo's auctions. And, of course, this means that all of those companies that were actually innovating will, at the very least, now need to spend legal dollars defending against this massive innovation blocker.

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Hey, Didn't Taxpayers Pay For Those Patents NASA Is Auctioning Off?

from the i-thought-so dept

ReallyEvilCanine writes in to let us know that Ocean Tomo, the patent auctioning company has worked out an agreement to auction off a package of 25 NASA patents covering things like signal processing, GPS for spacecraft and sensor technologies. Ocean Tomo always presents itself as somehow creating value from patents, but always seems to ignore how its version of creating value often means significant value lost to actual innovators. In this case, there's an even bigger question: didn't taxpayers pay for those patents by funding NASA? So why is some company now going to benefit from them, while locking the public out? In effect, the public is paying twice (at potentially inflated prices) for these inventions. Yet, you won't hear that from Ocean Tomo or the press reports about this auction, which note:

"Creating a market for patented technology funded by NASA benefits both the government and the commercial sector that will take advantage of it."

That leaves out the taxpayers who funded this in the first place and is simply incorrect. It harms the commercial sector by making them pay again for something. If NASA wanted to benefit the commercial sector, it could have placed those patents in the public domain, so that the commercial sector could compete to do something useful with them, thereby spurring on competition and more innovation.

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