Google buys up Modu's Patents

Modu was a small Israeli telecommunications company which attempted an IPO on the Tel Aviv stock exchange (see report here) but collapsed a few days later when the IPO failed, apparently USD 130 million (according to the report here). The 2008 investment round placed a valuation of USD 150 million on the company.

Modu made tiny little handsets which were no bigger than a credit card. Not much use either without a keyboard, but they were designed to be fitted out with jackets to add the functionality. Well it appears that the lack of a keyboard was their downfall since the company went out of business.

And their biggest asset left? Well apparently the patent portfolio, as Google came in at the last minute to pick up around 100 patents for a price of USD 4.9 Million. Quite a price for a bunch of patents - but probably only the cost of one saved litigation if the patents ended up in the wrong hands. I've no idea how many litigations Google have pending related to their Android-based telephones. It's probably into the tens and it would not surprise me if the fees were beginning to have an impact on the bottom line of the company. Google has never been a particularly aggressive company in asserting its patent rights and so these IP rights will probably end up in a dusty box somewhere in a lawyer's office (or since it's Google out in the big wide cloud) until the opportunity comes to defend itself.

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: Telecommunications, Google, Modu, Patent Sale

Licensing Rates in the Telecommunications Industry

Over the years we've reported on a number of licensing deals in the telecommunications industry. I've just been reading a highly interesting article by Eric Stasik of the Avvika company based in Stockholm. Erik has done a wonderful job in collecting together publicly available data on licensing rates for the proposed LTE standard. He's gathered a tremendous amount of information.

One of the fascinating points made by Eric is that compared to the earlier mobile telecommunications standards, the number of "essential patents" and also the number of individual patent holders has increased for the forthcoming LTE standard. Eric goes onto note that many of the smaller patent holders have more interest in obtaining royalty revenues than the larger "more established" players. He concludes that the putative licensing pools being organised by the likes of Sisvel, Via Licensing and MPEG-LA could well benefit by engaging with the smaller players to encourage them to join.

The article is published in the Licensing Executive Society International Les Nouvelles journal, September 2010, pages 114-119.

Technorati Tags:
Standards, Telecommunications, MPEG-LA, Via Licensing