How do we actually structure an open, free-market patent exchange?
(1) How would patent assets be placed on the exchange? (2) How would they be classified? (3) How many shares would be attributed to a given patent within a technology class? (4) How would we initially value them? (5) What market forces would affect value of the patent shares? (6) If I own a technology share (used interchangeably with patent share), what exactly do I own and what can I do with it? (7) What would drive trading on the patent shares? (8) What would incentivize collaboration amongst market players?
In this post, I’ll be discussing (2) technology classifications.
The first thing you’ll need to do is classify the technology class-of-assets. We discuss that more here (http://www.investinip.com/patent-exchange-supplying-the-market-part-3ii-of-x/).
From the perspective of designating a technology class and selecting which patent families will belong to what class, remember that investors will be looking to see how well you maintain your technology class-of-assets.
Are you letting them expire? Are you paying the maintenance fees? Are you filing additional patent applications into the technology class? Is the number of patents in the portfolio increasing, decreasing, or remaining stable?
All these factors affect investor perception as to how much you value your own technology class.
Be sure to designate the technology classes broadly enough in areas where you are actually interested in continuing to research and maintain patent activity.
And depending on the particular patent exchange, naming conventions will become standardized. This will enable patent traders to juxtapose similar technology classes amongst competitors and select which shares it would like to purchase (e.g., Amazon’s mobile cloud-computing technology class v. Oracle’s mobile cloud-computing technology class).
