What We're Watching for 2024

“Never mistake activity for achievement.” –John Wooden

by: Tom Hochstatter, President

Plain vanilla. Average. Mediocre. That’s how I would describe 2023 here in IP. Don’t get me wrong, we and many of our peer IP practioners, are proud of our results in 2023, but the sense is that there was a lot of activity and less progress, or just watch & wait: Patent Eligibility Restoration Act, Masimo v. Apple, IP Funding transparency, ChatGPT, Unified Patent Court, and more. John Wooden cautioned correctly.

For us at Techson, the year was focused heavily on foundational investments around our burgeoning Transaction practice and our Technology platform - Limestone AI. We’re excited to see both of these investments pay off handsomely in 2024 and beyond. All said, there are a handful of other meaningful industry activities and trends to watch in 2024. Here’s where we’ll cast our collective gaze:

Masimo v. Apple - et. al.

The US courts and the ITC giveth and they taketh away and away and away. So, what’s it going to be in 2024? Is Apple going to be banned from shipping/selling Pulse Ox-enabled Apple watches in the US or not? Masimo has them dead to rights, on IP rights, but Apple appealed their way to yet another stay in the case. We’re firmly rooting for Masimo on this one (and seeing an ITC ban actually hold since eBay…) and are watching this case with a scrutinous eye - and so should you especially if you have patented technology worth protecting.

IP Litigation Financing (and IP Insurance…)

Mind your business as my (and likely your) mother used to say, but thanks to a handful of knucklehead actors in the IP courts, the demand for more transparency in/around who’s backing whom in patent litigation is moving to become more public. Personally, I don’t see why it matters who has an economic interest in asserting a patent claim in court. Either that owner has a valid patent & patent claim against said defendant, or they don’t - them’s the facts of the case that matter, not who’s funding the case.

Delaware (DDE) judges are leading this charge currently and now here on January 1, the Corporate Transparency Act is in effective for companies of all sizes to disclose material ownership. One angle we will be watching is how all that accumulated IP investment capital gets “exposed” and if it hinders future Limited Partners’ participation in future IP Funds.

IP Insurance is also on our watch list. IP insurance has been on the bleeding edge of sophisticated IP financing for just a few years and most of their results have been on the bleeding side (of profits) for a variety of reasons - driving the cost of capital to absurd (risk) levels. We expect to see a maturation and new entrants with much more efficient models and much lower capital rates. And, most importantly a move toward steady and predictable profits. It is good to see more and more traditional investment professionals, capital & LPs enter the space; their knowledge and acumen will serve us all well.

Patent Abandonment Rates

Probably not on your 2024 Patent bingo card, but we watch this metric / trend closely. With AIA now a little over a decade old we are seeing large patent holders that maintained a “prosecute and hold” portfolio strategy are now seeing their patent maintenance fees ballooning, especially when it comes to that third USPTO 11.5 year maintenance fee. Our largest clients are running very detailed reviews of their entire portfolios to truly determine which patents are core or necessary and which ones can be deprioritized. However, one man’s trash…as the saying goes; so, take a moment to see if there is latent external value for those patents. We can now help.

We’ve built a simple program to help large patent holders deeply review and prioritize their entire portfolio - quickly and efficiently. Once done we have a triple-bottom line offer for some or all of the patents they have deprioritized. Allow Techson to buy them directly before they go abandoned.

If we buy them:

1) You get paid cash at close,

2) You get a free grant back license,

3) We pay the patent maintenance fees.

AI in Patents and Intellectual Property

Techson was fortunate to jump in guns a blazing when the AI / ChatGPT / LLMs hit the market late in 2022 and we launched our first foray into patent monetization AI automation with the release of our Limestone AI - IP Profile platform in Q1. See an example of our move to fulfill the holy grail of patent analytics - the automated patent claim chart. Hint: we are well on our way… Sample IP Profile machine generated portfolio report - 100% machine generated - link here.

Your IP Watch List

Let us know what you’ll be watching (other than the awesome work we’re doing for you here at Techson). We will update these hot topics on a quarterly basis and add a few that hit the radar too.