Acacia wasted no time on the ADAPTIX patents: Microsoft & Samsung first to pay
January 22, 2012 by TomH · Leave a Comment
From Joff Wild @ IAM Blog
“Acacia has concluded two licensing agreements covering patents in the ADAPTIX portfolio since it purchased the company for straight cash earlier this month. And they are both with big players. According to 8-K filings made by the NPE on 12th January, ADAPTIX has done deals with Microsoft and Samsung under terms that are not disclosed. Presumably, however, the agreements allow Acacia to begin to recoup the $160 million it paid for the wireless technology business. On the day that the acquisition was announced, Acacia also went to the Eastern District of Texas to assert ADAPTIX patents against big players, including AT&T, Nokia Siemens and Motorola.
Investment firm Davenport & Co has produced a briefing paper covering the ADAPTIX purchase in which it states Acacia will believe that “the licensing potential of this patent portfolio should approach at least several hundred million with targeted licensees consisting of handset manufacturers, wireless carriers and base station companies”. Davenport also highlights what it believes will be Acacia’s growing strategic importance:
Large companies face many issues when acquiring patents on their own, including antitrust concerns, existing cross-licensing agreements, which encumbers newly acquired patents, and the time/cost/business disruption risks associated with asserting patents on their own. In addition, with acquired patents being subject to existing cross licensing agreements, large companies do not want to pay for competitors’ market share and be unable to assert against them. These issues are beginning to increase the strategic importance of a third-party licensing entity like Acacia when contemplating acquisitions.”
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