A: A PatentBook is an online patent licensing tool that honors one irrefutable fact: hundreds of thousands of patents are combined by the world’s innovators to enable the advanced products and services we enjoy today. A PatentBook provides these innovative patent users a simple non-exclusive license to all of the hundreds of thousands of patents that may be used in their product or service. The PatentBook distributes license revenue to patent owners based on the quality of their patents.

Patent owners retain full ownership of their patents and can continue to license their patents as they always have done. Patent users do not have to pick and choose which patents they need to license, because the PatentBook offers a license to all the patents germane to their specific product or service for a very economical price.

PatentBooks allow patent owners to receive fair payment for their inventions and patent users to more rapidly market products and services without risking costly litigation.

A: Amnesty for a Subscribers’ past damages is a key PatentBooks benefit to Subscribers and market advantage to all.

Subscribers immediately benefit by receiving amnesty for past damages.

Publishers must agree to grant amnesty to subscribers in good standing.

Publishers still receive the lowest cost, distraction-free revenue from patent users who may have not ever paid for past usage, are not paying for current usage, and may be too small to justify an assertive licensing campaign against them in the future. This revenue stream will continue as long as the Subscriber remains in good standing.

Should a Subscriber cease to pay for PatentBooks licenses and continue to use PatentBooks patents, the Subscriber loses amnesty, is very likely to get sued, and may encounter a charge of willful infringement.

A: PatentBooks address several roadblocks to prosperity for patent owners, patent users, and the global economy. PatentBooks:

• Provide patent owners pain relief from identifying users of their patents and the extremely high cost and risk of enforcing and receiving payments for their patents.
• Allow patent owners to profit fairly from their inventions by comparing the technical, legal, and economic aspects of their patented invention to those of all other patented inventions used in a product or service.
• Keep patent owners (publishers) and patent users (subscribers) out of the courtroom and focused on growing their businesses.
• Offer patent users (subscribers) a “one-click license” allowing new inventions to be incorporated into products and services while providing the broadest possible freedom to operate so new products can get to market faster.
• Make patent portfolio management, evaluation, and subsequent innovation easier by providing a transparent standard for patent value.

…and much more. Follow the links to learn more about how PatentBooks benefit patent owners (publishers) and patent users (subscribers).

A: No. Patent pools are organized around technical standards (e.g., MPEG, DVD, 802.11), and only those patents that are “essential” to that technical standard are included in the patent pool. “Essential” is a government-defined term that means that a patent describes the one and only way to implement a required technical aspect of the standard.  If multiple patented ways exist to implement a technical aspect of a standard, then none of these patents are permitted to join the patent pool. Standards are fixed technical aspects of products and services that promote interoperability across complex systems. In other words, patent pools are an exclusive group of patents that must be paid for by someone who uses the technical standard. Consequently, this group of patents is relatively small, usually limited to a much smaller group of patents.

PatentBooks, on the other hand, are organized around a product or service and err on the side of inclusiveness, because they include ALL patents that may be used by a patent user to make, use, or sell a product or service. Markets for products and services are continuously dynamic, allowing certain features of products and services to rise and fall in popularity and sales. PatentBooks are therefore very dynamic, as the published patents within a PatentBook continuously mirror the market’s acceptance or rejection of patented features used by PatentBook products and services.

PatentBooks inclusiveness provides patent licenses to the most comprehensive set of patents available anywhere, thus minimizing patent users' risk of patent litigation.

A: Patent pools were a good first step in group licensing, and did move the market closer to the benefits above. Patent pools based on technical standards set by competitors reasonably left the patent pool open to governmental anti-trust scrutiny, which subsequently excluded all but “essential” patents. Patent pools approached, but could never fully offer the above benefits because of their:

• Exclusivity. Patent pools’ definition of “essential” patents excludes many patents and leaves patent users exposed to litigation.

PatentBooks are inclusive, inviting all patents that may be used in a commercially significant product or service to be published in a PatentBook. The market defines what features of products and services are successful, and the market’s preferences can change rapidly. PatentBooks dynamic patent evaluation system ensures the best patents are those that are always in Tiers 1 and 2. World governments support PatentBooks as the most efficient way to increase consumer choice and marketplace capitalism, thus accelerating the global economy. 

• Revenue distribution: All patents in a patent pool are valued equally, meaning all patents share revenue equally. Patent owners manipulate patent pools by adding divisional patents.

Governments around the world support PatentBooks as the most efficient way for inventions to be used and fairly compensated, drastically reducing patent litigation as a means of compensating patent owners, thus accelerating the global economy.

Please see our article on PatentBooks vs. Patent Pools for more information.

A: PatentBooks leverages decades worth of evaluating the patent portfolios of the Global 1000 via a human-intelligence-based, transparent, rigorous, repeatable method for certifying patents called TAEUSworks.™ TAEUSworks™ is considered the gold standard of patent evaluations. TAEUSworks™ earned a Wall Street Journal accolade of being the “Moody’s of Intellectual Property.” For more information, please visit https://taeusworks.com.

A: Yes. All patents in a PatentBook will be listed on the respective PatentBook page.

Tier 1 patents and their evaluations are open for full public viewing. This public display of Tier 1 patent evaluations helps to improve patent quality by:

1. Illustrating the attributes of superior patents.
2. Increasing brand recognition for Tier 1 patent owners.
3. Improving talent recruiting for Tier 1 patent owners.
4. Allows anyone to challenge the placement of a patent in Tier 1.

A: PatentBooks invites all patent owners to publish to relevant PatentBooks voluntarily. If a patent owner decides not to publish a patent to the PatentBook and to pursue litigation against patent users, the patent owner is free to do so, and so remains an outlying patent. Assuming a court decides the patent is indeed “great,” and decides for the plaintiff, the damages phase of the litigation begins. The court must determine damages by considering all other comparable transactions. The PatentBook will cite millions of transactions involving similar patents, either in Tier 1, 2, or 3, with appropriate payments for each patent in the respective tier. Plaintiffs asserting outlying patents in court will find justifying damages higher than the royalties paid to similar quality patents in the PatentBook very difficult.

Patent users who Subscribe to a PatentBook may also purchase optional patent litigation insurance, underwritten by major global insurance carriers.

A: The first five PatentBooks have been developed. For more information on each open PatentBook, please visit this page https://www.patentbooksinc.com/patentbooks/.   

A: While it is true that nearly everyone wins with PatentBooks, a couple of groups may be negatively impacted by PatentBooks, including:

• Patent litigation lawyers.  Patent litigation lawyers will be less busy, as patent litigation becomes even more risky and rare. PatentBooks public royalty rates, patent evaluations, and patent evaluation criteria make comparable patent licensing transaction data more easily discoverable for both patent owners and patent users. Patent owners' easiest and most efficient patent monetization method is Publishing to a PatentBook.
• Non-practicing Entities (aka “NPEs,” “Patent Trolls,” etc.).  A PatentBook in a product or service area neutralizes patent trolls in that product or service area. The publicly available PatentBook licensing price must be referenced in damages decisions for all litigated patents. Even an NPE that prevails in a lawsuit will most likely be limited to damages based on PatentBooks pricing.

A: You have a license to all patents in a PatentBook, and as new patents are added, you enjoy those patents for the same royalty rate that you were paying for the original patents. Early Adopters receive substantial benefits. Come in now and enjoy all of the benefits over time.

A: Visit the appropriate PatentBook pages for your patent(s) and click to read and sign the Publisher agreements. More information here: https://www.patentbooksinc.com/patentbooks/.

A: The answer depends on the terms of the existing license agreement. Existing licensing agreements supersede PatentBooks for the term of the licensing agreement.  When the pre-existing license agreements end, the parties’ license transactions may just be better, faster, and less expensive within a PatentBook, depending on their specific business inter-relationships.

A: Every PatentBook will always have Tier 1 patents because the top patents are always in Tier 1. Subscriber payments are lower in the early days of a PatentBook because there are fewer patents. Once the PatentBook contains a substantial proportion of multiple different companies patents,  Subscribers can begin to make payments and pronounce to the world that they are “PatentBook Licensed.”

A: Yes. The royalty paid by Subscribers is adjusted according to the value of specific Published patents owned by pre-existing licensors.

A: No. The royalty payable by the Subscriber, in this case, would be adjusted downward.

A: The pricing structure will be different because patent litigation damages are different in each country and each national PatentBook will be comprised of different patented inventions.

Each PatentBook will have national counterparts, e.g., USA, Japan, Korea, China, Germany, UK, etc.

A: No. Only Subscribers receive PatentBook licenses. Publishers are not obliged to Subscribe, and Subscribers are not obligated to Publish.  All activities are voluntary.

A: No. The PatentBooks comparable transactions information will mitigate excessive damages in a trial.