OxFirst Presentation: "Patent Aggregator meets Patent Aggregator: SISVEL and RPX Join Forces"

OxFirst is offering another interesting presentation titled, “Patent Aggregator meets Patent Aggregator: SISVEL and RPX Join Forces,” on June 3, 2019, at 14.00 BST and 15.00 CET.  Registration is available, here.  The description of the presentation states: 

For the first time in history, an aggregator of innovative Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) and an aggregator of willing licensees worked together to enter into a deal that simplifies access to widely-used technology, effectively allowing hundreds of transactions involving patent rights to occur through a single agreement. The aggregator of innovative SEPs is Sisvel International S.A., a patent management company that pools and licenses patented technology essential to widely-used standards such as Wi-Fi. The aggregator of willing licensees is RPX Corporation, a patent risk management company that acquires rights in patents for members. Sisvel and RPX entered into an agreement providing a license to specified RPX members under 500 standard essential patents that make up the Sisvel Wi-Fi Joint Licensing Program. In addition, Sisvel also licensed those RPX members under 200 non-essential Wi-Fi patents, owned by Sisvel’s subsidiary, Hera Wireless S.A. The presenters are Mattia Fogliacco, CEO of the Sisvel Group, and Dan McCurdy, CEO of the RPX Corporation.  Their respective short biographies are below.

As CEO of the Sisvel Group Mattia Fogliacco’s focus lies in making sure Sisvel maintains its leadership in the creation of value through licensing activities, while continuing to foster innovation and Intellectual Property protection. He is in charge of defining the strategies, growing the business and manage the resources of the Group. As CEO of the Sisvel Group my focus lies in making sure Sisvel maintains its leadership in the creation of value through licensing activities, while continuing to foster innovation and Intellectual Property protection. Mattia Fogliacco has a background in business and innovation management and holds an MSc from Bocconi University and a CEMS master's in international management. He has been part of the Executive Management team of the Sisvel Group since 2014, working as Chief New Business Officer for the last 3 years. Before joining Sisvel, Mr. Fogliacco was Managing Director at Iinnovation SA, a company focused on licensing and IP transactions. He also served as Senior International Manager at a service provider of Deutsche Bank, managing three IP and innovation investment funds. Dan McCurdy is CEO of RPX Corporation, where he previously served as senior vice president from 2014 to 2016. Prior to RPX, Dan was a partner with Quatela Lynch McCurdy. From 2008 through June 2014, he was CEO of Allied Security Trust, and Chairman and CEO of PatentFreedom. In June 2014, PatentFreedom was acquired by RPX.  Previously, Dan was founding CEO of ThinkFire; President of Intellectual Property of Lucent Technologies and Bell Laboratories; a Vice President of IBM responsible for the creation of its Life Sciences business unit; a Vice President of Ciena Corporation where he directed merger, acquisition and corporate development; Director of Business Development for IBM Research; and Manager of Technology and Intellectual Property Policy for IBM worldwide.  Dan graduated summa cum laude from the University of North Carolina. He served on the Intellectual Property Policy committee of the United States’ National Academies, in 2011 was named CEO of the Year by Intellectual Property Magazine, and in 2014 was named one of the 40 most influential “movers and shakers” in IP transactions and acquisitions by Intellectual Asset Magazine. He has been named in the IAM Strategy 300, honoring the leading 300 IP strategists worldwide, every year since the annual list has been published.

Licensing Rates in the Telecommunications Industry

Over the years we've reported on a number of licensing deals in the telecommunications industry. I've just been reading a highly interesting article by Eric Stasik of the Avvika company based in Stockholm. Erik has done a wonderful job in collecting together publicly available data on licensing rates for the proposed LTE standard. He's gathered a tremendous amount of information.

One of the fascinating points made by Eric is that compared to the earlier mobile telecommunications standards, the number of "essential patents" and also the number of individual patent holders has increased for the forthcoming LTE standard. Eric goes onto note that many of the smaller patent holders have more interest in obtaining royalty revenues than the larger "more established" players. He concludes that the putative licensing pools being organised by the likes of Sisvel, Via Licensing and MPEG-LA could well benefit by engaging with the smaller players to encourage them to join.

The article is published in the Licensing Executive Society International Les Nouvelles journal, September 2010, pages 114-119.

Technorati Tags:
Standards, Telecommunications, MPEG-LA, Via Licensing

New CDMA2000 patent pool launched

This week Sisvel launched a new joint patent licensing program, offering a licence to essential CDMA2000 patents (patents for hybrid 2.5G/3G technology of mobile telecommunications standards that use CDMA, code division multiple access, a multiple access scheme for digital radio enabling the sending of data between mobile phones and cell sites) on “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms”. The patents included in the program are owned by big players such as France Telecom, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, and Siemens.

Sisvel, the Italian consumer electronics group, started in 1982 and today is one of the leading companies in managing IP and maximizing the value of patent rights. Sisvel will act on behalf of the patent owners as licensing administrator for the program, which is designed to make essential CDMA2000 patents more easily accessible and ensure that users can “benefit from the flexibility and practicality of the license terms available”. The royalty rate for all included functions under any license is “only US$ 0.05 per patent family per unit, up to a cap of US$ 0.50 per unit for products that include the 1x-RTT air interface but have no EV-DO functionality, and a cap of US$ 1.00 per unit for products that include the EV-DO air interface”.

More information is available here and some CDMA2000 market statistics can be found on the CDMA Development Group website here.