The Number of New Portfolios for Sale in the Secondary Market Increased to 591 in 2018
Our 2018 brokered market report was printed in the recent IAM Magazine January/February issue. As we have reported previously, 2018 saw a general uptick in the market. In the article excerpt below, we analyze the trend for new patent portfolios offered for sale (here referred to as "packages').
At 591 packages (502 last year), listings have increased by 17.7%. The only year in which we saw more listings was the 2016 market. If the assets from Provenance Asset Group were included in these numbers, the numbers would show an all-time high. The number of total assets and US-issued patents also increased.
We have benchmarked our deal flow with that of other large corporations and defensive aggregators and have found that the number of brokered packages we received is generally similar, so we are confident that our numbers reflect the market. Compared to previous years the total number of US-issued assets listed in packages increased twice as fast as the number of packages listed. Notably, the total number of assets listed increased even more than the US-issued assets. This signifies the continued importance of international assets and an elevated level of focus on elements of a package other than US-issued assets. However, US-issued assets are still the focus in most listings. While we limit the types of package included in this dataset to the more common types (eg, quasi-public/brokered packages containing 200 or fewer assets), we also track larger bulk deals and private deals.
Overall, the market continues to provide packages that are relevant to a diverse range of technologies, products and focus companies. With a healthy number of varied packages, there are assets available to fill business needs in almost any high-tech category. When we receive a package, we use the package materials – and any asset highlighted by the seller – to categorise it according to our taxonomy of technical areas. We have developed a two-tiered classification taxonomy with 18 general technical categories and 108 sub-categories, which we continue to modify as new technologies come onto the brokered market.
As illustrated by Figure 5, the distribution of general technologies continues to skew towards software. There has also been significant growth within certain software technologies, including increased listings relating to the Internet of Things, internet-scale data management, and content and consumer software such as video and image processing. Additionally, for the first time, the ‘other’ category has now overtaken hardware as the second most common category. This is due to increases in listings in a variety of different areas and increased diversity in technologies listed. Last year there was a rise in listings in the energy and automotive sectors including solar- power, charging, autonomous driving and connected cars; and these areas continue to be popular. This year, we are seeing significantly more medical device packages and some moderate increases in imaging packages. (Originally published in IAM Magazine January/February issue 2019).
Read our latest patent market report on IAM Media here.