Our Business Model
Our business model involves securing investment for the “long game” of licensing/assertion (“Our Role in the Patent Market”) in zealous pursuit of maximum returns (10-50X of a patent sale), while reducing the risks associated with assertion, by securing capital to invest in patent portfolios both before & during patent assertion to increase the quality/quantity thereof. Such investment ensures that patent holders maximize the chances that their patent portfolio endures the risk of succumbing to the many legal obstacles in patent assertion (“Our History”) that have recently been put into place by Congress and the Courts. These legal obstacles (and the subsequent “fallout” in the Patent Office/Courts) have led to an overall devaluation of patents.
The Market Disconnect
At the same time, patent owners/inventors typically only spend tens of thousands of dollars in attorney/government fees to draft and prosecute their patent applications to issuance. Further, as a result of the aforementioned general devaluation of patents and the emergence of artificial intelligence-fueled efficiencies, there has been a recent coinciding “commoditization” of patent prosecution that has put downward pressure on such attorney fees in the market. This is ironic in view of the fact that it actually takes additional effort/work, not less, to overcome the aforementioned legal hurdles that have been recently erected.
Our Guiding Principles
Having been active in the patent market and licensing over the last few decades, Oso IP has witnessed firsthand how the prosecution of patents (before assertion) has an oversized impact on the patents’ efficacy, during assertion, in overcoming the aforementioned legal hurdles to deliver maximum returns and, conversely, how “skimping” during prosecution can negatively impact outcome. After directly witnessing how such different (e.g. comprehensive vs. scanty) prosecution approaches have “played out” in dozens of licensing campaigns over decades, Oso IP is resolute in its position that, when it comes to delivering maximum returns, there is no substitute for comprehensive prosecution strategies before patent assertion.
It is for this reason that Oso IP secures investment exclusively in only patent portfolios that meet two criteria:
Pending Application
The patent family must include a pending application with at least a few years of remaining patent term.
Significant Infringement
The patent portfolio must disclose novel technological advancements that are being used in the market to drive significant revenue.
Not only does this funding for additional prosecution maximize chances of overcoming the aforementioned obstacles to achieve optimal returns during an initial assertion, it also enables the possibility of a proper legal “second bite” at the apple through additional, iterative assertions, by carefully navigating “collateral estoppel”/”issue preclusion” legal issues that historically limit additional assertions. Through its funding, Oso IP sets the stage for maximizing the possibility of securing multiple legally-appropriate judgements, in case an initial assertion ends in an adverse judgement/verdict. Further, by the infringers witnessing additional patents being issued that address the infringers’ own attacks, these same infringers quickly recognize the fact that the patent holders’ assertion is getting stronger, not weaker, as a result of the infringers’ attacks.
To this end, Oso IP secures investment under the axiom that “you get what you pay for” when it comes to generating patents that are to be ultimately asserted, in that: what a patent holder “pays” for prosecution, typically dictates what such same patent holder will “get” in terms of returns on their invention.