NW200: E-commerce for intellectual property, 04/24/00

New dot-com players act as matchmakers for vendors that hold patents and companies that need the technology contained therein.

BY JULIE BORT
Network World, 4/24/00

Intellectual property has become such a universally recognized prize that it has begun to spawn business-to-business marketplaces - Yet2.com, IP Network and the Patent and License Exchange.

Yet2.com matches owners of intellectual property, such as technology patents, with those wishing to license that technology. Founded in February 1999, the site launched with an impressive array of founding members: 3M, Boeing, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Ford, Honeywell, Philips, Polaroid, Procter & Gamble, Rockwell, Monsanto, TRW and SAIC.

Furthermore, Yet2.com is specifically targeting the networking industry as participants, says Lisa Butler, marketing manager at Yet2.com. An undisclosed number have become customers.

Here's how it works: Users search the site and pull down abstracts of available technologies. If interested in a technology, a user pays $25 to access more in-depth records, such as information on product licensing terms.

Should the technology still meet the user's pricing, availability and technology needs, he fills out an online form requesting an introduction to the technology's owner. Yet2.com charges $1,000 for that intro. If the meeting leads to a licensing deal, a broker fee comes into play, with Yet2.com (www.yet2.com) taking a royalty off revenue from the resulting product. The cap is $50,000, Butler says.

"Intellectual property brokers know industries well, develop contacts within an industry and rely on those contacts. We open IP brokering across industries," Butler says. For instance, this could allow a Polaroid-owned technology for narrowband optical fiber to be licensed and adapted by an optical router start-up. It also lets small companies into the IP bartering game.

IP Network (www.ipnetwork.com), in New York, operates similarly in that it lets people search and bid on copyrights, trademarks and patents, for a wide variety of items. Likewise, the Patent and License Exchange, at www.pl-x.com, has its online exchange at the ready and claims to have about 70 subscribers already, from large corporations to university research centers.

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