More on Patent Revenue and Distribution

Last week, Peter Detkin, founder and Vice-Chairman of Intellectual Ventures (IV) was quoted as saying that small inventors only received the "crumbs" when it came to patent licensing revenue. Apparently, this statistic was generated by IV, but has been picked up from the likes of Acacia Research, which claims in this presentation from March 2008 that only 1% of patent revenue and distribution is received by small companies, individual inventors, universities and research labs.

Citing an earlier Deliotte & Touche study, The Acacia presentation breaks down patent licensing for some of the biggest players:

- Qualcomm = $2B/year licensing CDMA patents (89% margins)

- IBM = $1.5-2B/year

- Philips Electronics = $570M/Year (100% of earnings for Consumer Electronics Business)

- Thomson = $390M/year (75% of total earnings)