What do you get when you pair a self-styled merchant bank for intellectual property with a venture firm that specializes in corporate spinouts? A partnership like the one announced Tuesday by Ocean Tomo LLC and Blueprint Ventures. The two say they've agreed to work as nonexclusive preferred partners on identifying orphaned technology programs inside companies and then using funding and know-how to turn their patents and associated personnel into startup companies.
Chicago-based Ocean Tomo is best known for its Christie's-like live auctions of patent portfolios and other intellectual property, replete with glossy catalogs. (For more on patent auctitions, click
here.) South San Francisco, Calif.-based Blueprint manages $200 million targeting spinoffs of IP, trade secrets and personnel. (See this Corporate Dealmaker
case study of one of Blueprint's previous deals.)
In a conversation at the 10th Annual IBF Corporate Venturing & Strategic Investing Conference, Blueprint managing director George Hoyem said the pair frequently had worked together informally in the past, but decided to form an alliance, in which Ocean Tomo will potentially take equity positions in deals it brings to Blueprint.
"We have kind of vectored into relationships, but so far haven't pulled the trigger," Hoyem said. "Ocean Tomo is positioned at the intersection of intellectual property and private equity finance, and it is at this intersection where our two firms can create the best value for our corporate clients by giving them a way to unlock the dormant value of their unused IP."
Ocean Tomo is frequently hired in an advisory role to help companies determine the value of IP assets, and since a large part of the firm's practice is as an expert witness in patent defense cases, patent holders frequently consult with it simply to determine whether noncore patents are worth the cost of maintaining. In that role, the firm frequently is in a position to help companies realize value in their patents that they had not recognized.
Michael Lasinski, a managing director with Ocean Tomo, said there has been a lot of money flowing into the area of intellectual property assets -- not all of it smart money -- with hedge funds and private equity groups eagerly eyeing the valuations accorded companies like Tessera Technologies Inc. and Acacia Research Corp. -- Acacia Technologies, which derive most of their revenues from licensing IP for electronics design. (For more on Ocean Tomo and intellectual property as an asset class, read this 2007
cover story from The Deal.) Given that market environment, it made sense for Ocean Tomo to link its valuation experience with Blueprint's specialization in advancing early-stage spinouts.
Along with Ocean Tomo referring potential spinouts to Blueprint, Blueprint will send Ocean Tomo patent holders with IP that's valuable but not the basis for a business, for help monetizing it in other ways. -
Clifford Carlsen
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