Uber wants to grow its library of patents. The company has launched a brand new patent purchase program to facilitate this very aim. Under the awning of the new program, Intellectual Property owners will be able to propose a price that they are willing to take for their particular patent. Once they do so, Uber will have the option of either accepting or declining the same. This will not only give the company the option of quickly accepting the ones it feels are advantageous to it, but will also bring it a literal horde of applications.
Uber has announced a patent application windows that opens on April 24, 2017 and will be closing May 23, 2017. The whole process is expected to take around 4 months and is a significant improvement from the amount of time a patent acquisition process is usually expected to take.
Speaking with TechCrunch, Uber’s Patent Transactions Lead Kurt Brasch said:
It is a buying program intended to really eliminate the friction of the secondary patent marke. So the typical secondary patent market is challenging, valuations are difficult to identify for both buyers and sellers. Sellers tend to start out really high and buyers tend to start out really low, and negotiations can take years instead of months. So what this program really does is smooth that out. The buyer, in this case Uber, gets one price from the seller – they have to give us one price they’re willing to sell for, no negotiations – and the seller gets speed to close.
The process doesn’t really give the sellers or the patent owners much leverage. However, many IP owners are probably going to go along because they will be able to sell their efforts that much quicker. Uber is actually utilizing an inherent flaw in the human nature through this process. We could very well know that something will fetch us more if we only wait it out, however, the prospect of money rolling in instantly is often enough to weaken our resolve and induce us to sell out at the first decent price that is offered.
What’s more, Uber could well put in some extra effort and engage into direct dialogue where it particularly likes a patent. So yeah, this expedited patent acquisition process outs quite a lot of cards in Uber’s hands. The company is already attempting to grow its patent portfolio through a slew of engineering teams that are working to come up with new IPs. This process, that will see the cab aggregator leverage its well-filled coffers to acquire patents, might help grow its patent library that much faster.
Not only are patents useful and give companies an edge against competition — Uber just might acquire some IP associated with self-driving cars for instance — they also allow companies to generate revenue by the process of licensing their patents to others.
