Industry situation
Product manufacturing companies in medium/high tech markets invest significant effort and money in research and development in order to improve their competitiveness. Increasinly the results of these efforts are secured through Intellectual Property Rights such as patents and are used in proprietary products and processes. In some cases these patent rights are licensed out to other companies in the same market domain to obtain a dominant market position, to receive other licenses in exchange or to grow additional revenue. Especially large multinationals in the electronics, telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries have made significant steps in this area in the past decades. However, licensing out to companies in other market domains (with other types of products) is not so common and this is understandable because management focus prohibits to give attention to these 'alien' areas.
Hidden opportunities
Yet, still a lot of patented knowledge (WIPO publications suggest between 70-80%) remain on the shelve without commercial use in products or processes. Considering the fact that a lot of effort and money is invested in these patents it seems to be a real waste not to use them to generate revenue. But with scarce recources in a competitive environment your focus should be on your target market and not on other markets without any link to your own business, let alone on the hassle of legal and commercialisation issues.
Philosophy
This is were the mult-IP-lier philosophy kicks in: we take over the hassle and the focus-distracting effort to license out your patent rights to alien markets. Central in the business model is the fact that your company (the 'donor' company) grants us an exclusive right to out-license your patent rights in other markets then your own. When we succeed in doing so license fees for these new applications will flow back to your company, a revenue stream requiring minimum effort, not existing today. We will earn a fair share of these license fees as a reward of the efforts made.
Key elements
The first key element in the mult-IP-lier method is the transition from patented technology to potential applications. For this step the TiP® (Technology into Products) approach is used to effectively separate the characteristics of the technology from its background market domain. The second key element is the Protancy® process that allows 'receptor companies' to gradually intensify their committment to license the patent. This is realized by a gradually increasing subscription fee that earns them an option to the final, full fledge license agreement at the end of their internal development process. An overview of the essential process steps can be found on the Process page.