Why Sell?
Depending on the maturity of your company, there are a number of reasons why you should consider selling patents:
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Who's Selling?
Selling patents is no longer limited to financially distressed or failed companies. Individual inventors, universities, and technology companies, large and small, now regularly sell individual patents or even large portfolios as part of a broader patent monetization strategy. The practice of selling patents is now widely accepted and even considered essential to prudent patent portfolio management.
Why Not Build a Licensing Program or Litigate?
- Hiring lawyers and licensing executives to build a licensing/litigation program from the ground-up is very costly
- Running a licensing program or managing litigation on multiple fronts is a distraction from your core business
- Going on the offensive will expose your patents (e.g. re-exam, Markman hearings, etc.) and could potentially render them valueless
- Asserting patents can be very disruptive to your ecosystem and may have unintended consequences for your core business