A first glance at the top assignees in this sector provides no surprises, but a second glance may create some double-takes. Facebook, Micosoft, and IBM? Sure. But who are NewValueXchange, OnePatont Software, and Excalibur IP?
NewValueXchange is a British company that has considerable IP in this space but seems to be fairly dormant. OnePatont Software is an Indian company who just seems interesting in licensing their technology, and is not afraid to threaten lawsuits in order to do it. Finally, Excalibur IP is the IP holding arm of what used to be Atlaba, which was essentially the remainder of Yahoo! after it was sold to Verizon. Excalibur's assets are huge (nearly 4000 patents), but the company doesn't seem to be doing much with them. So, why are there so many unknown companies sitting on so many assets?
Patent activity has been growing dramatically in this sector (more than 250% growth in filed and awarded patents in the last five full years), and patent activity always leads market activity. Will these surprise companies sell their assets? Will they try to take down the behemoths? This certainly looks like a scenario where highly valued companies may look to buy assets in order to strengthen their place in the market and protect their operating space.
