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Global IP Law Group handled Nortel’s $4.5B patentauction, increasing the corporate appetite for patents.department was no longer around to help the trustees valuethe company’s IP assets.The Nortel trustees put out a request for proposal toassist with the valuation and auction process. Global IP wasamong the firms that responded, which also included largelaw firms and IP licensing and brokerage firms. Maybe itwas the copy of an issued patent that Berten distributed tothe 25 or so trustees who were mostly investment bankersand bankruptcy lawyers that did the trick; Berten guessedcorrectly that most of them had not seen a real patentbefore. Or it could have been the tutorial Berten gave onhow his group would analyze the portfolio, which containsmore than 11,000 patent claims covering various typesof mobile technology, and assessing the individual andcollective value of the patents within the context of currentmarket forces in the mobile industry.“Normally, a firm our size would not have a chance toget a project this big,” Berten said. “In-house counsel areknown to hire big-name firms for high-profile work.”Fortunately for Global IP, Nortel no longer had an inhouselegal department and investment bankers fromLazard were the ones doing the hiring. The firm got the joband the rest was patent history. Nortel’s patent portfolioset off a bidding frenzy, earning the company more moneythan its entire operating business units, which sold for acombined $3 billion.Berten’s phone has not stopped ringing since. Theheadline-grabbing success also landed them EastmanKodak’s bankruptcy patent sale.“We didn’t initially set out to do bankruptcy work,” Bertenchuckled, “but like any other startup we had to tweak ourbusiness model quickly.”Since opening its doors in 2009, Global IP partners havereviewed tens of thousands of patents and have handledpatent transactions involving more than 10,000 patentsvalued close to $5 billion.An Evolving MarketThe business of selling, licensing and enforcing patentshas been murky. Unlike other business transactions, noone really knows how much companies pay for intangibleassets like patents. Even companies looking to purchaseIP find it difficult to value a patent. For years, the onlystraightforward way to find out the value of a patent wasto sue infringers and get a settlement or a verdict. Patentschanged hands between companies through licensing oracquisition but very little quantifiable data were availableto determine how much patents cost. Even companies withan army of patent lawyers are still hard pressed to put a realfigure on their IP portfolio.But the litigation strategy created backlash as many bigcompanies, often targets of multiple patent infringementsuits by lone inventors or nonpracticing patent entities,viewed it as a way to extort money from legitimatebusinesses – those that make and sell tangible products.Technology companies have poured money into lobbyingPhoto by: Mauritz Antin/EPA/NewscomL A W D R A G O N 30 I s s u e 13