Intermediaries for the IP market

During the past decade, a variety of intermediaries have emerged to facilitate the trading of patents: brokers, non-practicing entities (NPEs), defensive aggregators, online platforms, auctions and unique entities such as Intellectual Ventures. We discuss the fundamental causes for the lack of liquidity in the IP market and analyze the merits and shortcomings of the various business models used by patent intermediaries. A key conclusion is that platform-type intermediaries (who facilitate transactions without taking possession of assets) have struggled, whereas merchant-type intermediaries (who acquire patents and seek to monetize them directly) have reached significant scale and influence in the technology industries that fall under the incidence of their assets. We also discuss some efficiency issues raised by the growing prominence of patent merchants.