WO2002044965A2 - Automated electronic vending of intellectual property - Google Patents

Description

DESCRIPTION

AUTOMATED ELECTRONIC VENDING OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the technical fields of electronic commerce, and networking. The invention describes a method of conducting business and software and hardware infrastructure enabling or supporting that method.

Background Art

The explosive spread of the Internet, and the accompanying growth of electronic commerce conducted through networked computers, has led to the development of numerous online marketplaces. Today, hundreds of millions of people have access to the Internet. Many of these users, especially those who access the Internet through the interface known as the World Wide Web, do so with the specific intent of purchasing for themselves or their businesses one or more of the wide variety of products offered for sale through the Internet, or to otherwise use the Internet to complete some commercial transaction.

A vast number of Web sites, most operating on a client and server system wherein the seller's server system is accessed by the purchaser's client system, have been developed through which vendors can advertise and sell products. In a typical such system, a server computer system may provide information about a product or service offered for sale along with an indication of the price of the item. A potential purchaser may browse through information online using a computer or other device equipped with a browser of their choice, and thereby view various offerings for purchase or lease. In one commonly used system, when a user indicates, through their browser, that they have completed selecting items to be purchased, the server computer system then typically prompts the user for information to complete the purchase agreement. This purchaser-specific order information may include information such as a credit card number used to confirm transfer of payment. Upon receipt of this information, the server computer system then typically confirms the order by sending a confirming Web page to the client computer system. The transaction is thereby completed instantly and automatically, without the need for expensive human intervention and providing instant gratification to the buyer.

The advantages provided by systems such as these have helped fuel the growth of Internet commerce. Among these advantages are that potential buyers are free to study the property being offered and the terms for purchase anonymously, at their leisure, and in an environment in which they are comfortable. Another advantage is that transactions can be completed almost instantaneously by simple steps, such as one or a few mouse clicks. For many sellers, the ability to reach a vast international audience is an attractive feature. The wide spread of the Internet allows some sellers to successfully market through the Internet property for which the potential customer pool is too small to support a conventional operation.

Not only are information and physical goods available for purchase, but marketplaces have also developed for services, and for the sale of property rights such as land and shares in corporations. However, despite the rapid growth of Internet commerce, none of the present systems can be used for automated trade or licensing of that very valuable and important form of property known as intellectual property. Although in some online transactions, such as the purchase of software, the licensing of intellectual property rights is a part of the transaction, in these cases the primary commodity is the software or other product itself, and the intellectual property license is ancillary to the real transaction. This transaction is most commonly included to enable the purchaser to legally use the product they have purchased, or to protect the seller in some way. Far from encouraging intellectual property commerce, these agreements are designed to limit the use and circulation of the product they accompany.

In recent years marketplaces or exchanges advertising the sale of intellectual property, such as patent rights, have appeared on the World Wide Web. However, all of these existing intellectual property exchanges offer what are essentially introductory services only. Owners of intellectual property list their property on one or more such exchanges and, when a potential buyer expresses interest, a licensing agreement must be individually negotiated. This process is time consuming, labor-intensive, and expensive. Further, because negotiating such an agreement requires a level of understanding and sophistication beyond that of the majority of ordinary businesspeople, a very large number of potential buyers or licensees are dissuaded from attempting to purchase intellectual property rights.

One web site of note, Patent & License Exchange Inc., operates a web site at www.pl-x.com through which the company offers services which attempts to speed this process by pre-screening participants and offering a variety of standardized contracts. However, even this site, with a stated aim of "helping buyers and sellers reach agreement faster and with less effort" suffers from a serious disadvantage in that, even though negotiation is speeded, a negotiation step remains a requirement. The mere existence of this step delays the licensing process, increases costs to the participants, and discourages participation. A further disadvantage with the Patent & License Exchange system is that the mandatory pre-screening of buyers delays participation, further increases costs, and limits the pool of potential buyers to only those entities able to pass the screening process and willing to enter it. This process also makes it difficult, or impossible, for buyers to participate anonymously, or semi- anonymously, through an agent.

The limitations in today's systems are especially unfortunate because the value and recognition of intellectual property is growing rapidly, as witnessed by the ever greater number of patent applications filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Japan Patent Office, and the European Patent Office, and because the transfer of intellectual property, which generally does not require a transfer of a physical asset, is especially suited to Internet commerce. The present systems of international patent licensing are also disadvantageous in that they require that participants possess a relatively high level of skill in areas such as a high technology, new business areas, languages, and multiple business cultures. The cost of assembling such a wide expertise limits participation to a very small percentage of entities. For example, despite the existence of treaties such as the Paris Convention and the Patent Cooperation Treaty specifically granting inventors the right to patent their invention in other countries, technology start-ups, from where many of the most valuable ideas originate, rarely are able to develop their rights outside of their home country. A general description of the complexity of the patenting and licensing process is given in the 7th edition of the popular book Patent It Yourself by David Pressman, published by Nolo Press, California in 1999. In today's intellectual property market, only a very small percentage of owners of profitable inventions patent their inventions overseas. Too often, these entities must then stand by while technologies they developed, and then patented in their home country, are produced and marketed from Japan to the rest of the world. For those that do pursue filing overseas, the costs involved are such that even the above David Pressman, who is a licensed Patent Attorney and a widely viewed as a positive promoter of patent filing, writes on page 12/8 of the above book, "Almost all inventors who file abroad never recoup their investment - that is, they usually waste tens of thousands of dollars in fees and hardly ever derive any royalties, let alone enough royalties to cover their costs".

Meanwhile, there exists throughout the world a vast pool of potential partners, venture capitalists, and corporations, eager to invest in such technology, but unable to locate breakthrough technology into which to channel their investment funds, unable to devote to each potential licenser the time and cost necessary to close a licensing agreement, or simply unwilling to enter into what they fear may be unbalanced negotiations with a party who may have superior knowledge of the intellectual property field.

Disclosure of Invention

The present invention was conceived in light of the disadvantages of the background art.

Because with the present invention a negotiation step may be eliminated, a method and system of instantly buying and selling intellectual property, or rights to specific aspects of that property, is provided that realizes the commercial advantages made possible by the application of electronic networks.

As such, the present invention offers an automated electronic marketplace for intellectual property rights that is faster and more efficient than any existing intellectual property exchange method. This marketplace can be widely accessed, if so embodied, even to the point of opening participation to anyone with access to the Internet. Meanwhile, the method and system of the present invention simplifies the vending procedure such that intellectual property can be bought, sold, and licensed by buyers, sellers, licensees, and licensers, not versed in intellectual property law.

According to one aspect, the present invention is a method for licensing intellectual property rights comprising the steps of receiving from an owner of an intellectual property a permission to license rights to an aspect of that property, and making accessible on an electronic network to which a plurality of potential licensees have access, an offer to license the aspect of the intellectual property, in a manner such that the potential licensees are provided a means to indicate acceptance of the offer, wherein a 5 license for the aspect of the intellectual property is granted to a potential licensee immediately upon receipt of an indication of acceptance from that potential licensee.

In this manner, a buyer can conclude a licensing by, for example, merely clicking on an online catalog. The potential licensee is not required to enter into a negotiating step with the owner of the intellectual property. The offering of set terms also allows for the elimination of pre-registration, L0 though such a step may, of course, be included when desirable based on other considerations.

According to another aspect, the present invention can be embodied as a method for vending an intellectual property right using a client system comprising the steps of displaying information describing an intellectual property right that is available for purchase, the terms for purchasing that right, and indication of an action that may be used to purchase that right; in response to the indicated action L5 being performed, sending to a server system a request to purchase the described right; whereby, as a result of the above steps and without a further step of negotiation, purchase of the right is completed.

According to still another aspect, the present invention is a server system for completing intellectual property licensing agreements comprising a data storage section storing information for a plurality of intellectual properties; a receiving component for receiving requests to license intellectual 20 properties, each request indicating one of the plurality of intellectual properties and containing information identifying the user sending the request; a license enabling component that evaluates user information received by the receiving component and outputs a permission to complete a licensing agreement when the evaluation is positive; and a licensing component that completes a licensing agreement in accordance with a request received by the receiving component when enabled by a 25 permission output by the license enabling component.

In any of the above aspects, the electronic network may be the Internet and the offer may be made accessible by being published on the World Wide Web. The intellectual property may preferably be a patent or patent application, a right to patent an invention in a country in which a patent application has yet to be filed, or a patent application filed in a country where examination must be requested and

30 for which examination has yet to be requested.

The present invention also provides a method for managing or completing cross-licensing agreements. In such a transaction, weighted intellectual property rights, or counters representing weighted intellectual property rights are exchanged.

The interface to the present invention can be made available in multiple languages such that 35 users need not speak a common language to complete a transaction, thereby further reducing manpower and costs and further enhancing accessibility.

The licensing agreement may preferably be offered in a standardized form so that employees, agents, customers, licensers, and licensees need not possess a deep understanding of intellectual property law to be able to participate. Standardization may also be preferable when the nature of a web-based business, or a strict deadline for filing, as is common in some aspects of intellectual property development, allows no time for individualized negotiations. Not only is it possible for all parties to advantageously benefit from increased licensing revenue resulting from wider utilization of a particular intellectual property, a further advantage of the present invention is that it can be configured such that, with the exception of those who would have exploited a property for free were the property not licensed and protected, all parties gain immediate benefits. In summary, the present invention provides a method for trading in intellectual property that is dramatically cheaper and faster than previous methods. Application of the present invention can greatly reduce costs, monetary and manpower, associated with licensing intellectual property.

With the present invention, neither licensers nor licensees are required to be skilled in the intellectual property field to participate. Transactions between widely spread participants who do not speak a common language can be completed in a few simple steps when the method of the present invention is employed.

In a further advantage of the present invention, the licensing vender may use the volume of business to negotiate favorable terms with service providers, such as patent agents and patent attorneys, to thereby further reduce costs to participants. The potential savings may be most remarkable for small entities or overseas entities who individually do not have the strength or experience to obtain similar terms by themselves.

Brief Description of Drawings

Fig.l is a diagram showing a system adapted to operate the method according to the present invention. Fig. 2 and Fig 3 are sample browser images for client interfaces for the present invention. Fig. 4 is a data table that may be used in the present invention. Fig. 5 is a diagram of a server system according to the present invention.

Best Mode for Carrying Out the Invention The best mode for carrying out the present invention is described in the following with reference to the attached drawings and by way of working embodiments and specific examples. These examples are meant to illustrate the method and system of the present invention as applied in sample commercial applications and are given to help convey a better understanding of the operation, advantages, and effects of the present invention. These examples are not intended to limit the invention in any way and many variations, obvious and subtle, are possible within the scope of the invention as claimed. Embodiment 1 In a first embodiment of the present invention, the method of the present invention is employed by a commercial enterprise operating an electronic marketplace for intellectual property rights. In this embodiment, which can be better understood by referring to the attached Fig. 1, a license vender 1 first concludes an agreement with an intellectual property owner 2 granting the license vender 1 permission to sell rights to an aspect of that property.

The form of that agreement will reflect the goals of the participants and be constructed in conformity to the laws governing that transaction. An example of such an agreement may include, but is in no way limited to, an agreement empowering the license vender 1 to act as agent or representative of the intellectual property owner 2. This agreement may preferably be a standardized agreement and, when so offered, may be so designed and offered such that an intellectual property owner 2 may enter into the agreement, and thereby offer an aspect of their property, simply and without negotiation. A standard agreement may, for example, be offered on the World Wide Web along with a response form that can be completed by the intellectual property owner 2. This allows intellectual property owners to instantly list and automatically provide their property to the license vender 1.

The license vender 1 will next make accessible on an electronic network 100 to which a plurality of potential licensees 3 have access, an offer to license the aspect of the intellectual property. This step may also be automated where desirable. This offer will include sufficient description to allow the potential licensees 3 to understand the intellectual property rights being offered and the terms and obligations of the licensing agreement and will also include a means, such as a reply feature, input screens, or electronic buttons, for indicating acceptance of the offer.

A potential licensee 3 who wishes to purchase the rights being offered for sale can do so using the means provided. In so doing, the potential licensee 3 will agree to accept the terms as offered in their entirety. While the potential licensees will, of course, be free to consult with legal counsel or any other advisers, they are not required to enter into negotiations.

When a potential licensee 3 indicates acceptance of the terms of the purchase or licensing agreement, that acceptance is transmitted through the electronic network 100 to the license vender 1. Upon receipt of that acceptance indication, and without an additional step of negotiation, the transaction is concluded and the potential licensee 3 is now a licensee with full legal rights to the intellectual property as offered. Preferably, license vender 1 communicates such to both the intellectual property owner 2 and the licensee.

To ensure the protection of the interests of both parties and thereby facilitate the rapid conclusion of licensing agreements, it may be preferable that the agreement includes the empowering of the license vender 1 to arrange for legal procedures associated with the prosecution, assignment, establishment, or registration of the licensed intellectual property. In such a case, it will generally be preferable that the license vender 1 collect in advance from one or both of the potential licensee 3 and the intellectual property owner 2 funds sufficient to cover costs associated with this step. In such a case, the process may include an additional step wherein the license vender 1 will retain the services of an authorized agent 4. This authorized agent 4 may, for example, be a patent attorney or other person or entity legally empowered in the appropriate jurisdiction.

It may be preferable that the acceptance indication include sufficient information to guarantee payment of financial obligations associated with the agreement. It may also be preferable for the method to include an additional step of verifying information or otherwise determining eligibility of participation by the potential licensee 3.

While it may be preferable that the agreement between the license vender 1 and the intellectual property owner 2 include terms allowing the intellectual property owner 2 to withdraw aspects of their property from the agreement, not allowing the power of these terms to extend in time beyond the receipt of an acceptance from licensee 3, enables the transfer of ownership of the rights in question immediately upon receipt of a proper request.

In this manner, an agreement for the licensing of intellectual property rights is completed quickly and with a minimum of human involvement. This realizes a significant savings in cost, time, and manpower, which frees valuable resources for other purposes and which provides a competitive advantage to a site employing the method taught by the present invention.

Example 1.1

The embodiment of the present invention as described above will in the following be illustrated in additional detail using a specific example of a server-side business. In the following example, a "web site" and a "web site operator" correspond to the license vender 1, an "application owner" corresponds to the intellectual property owner 2, an "interested party" or a "user" corresponds to a potential licensee 3, and the network 100 is the Internet. By cross-referencing these terms, Fig. 1 described in detail above can also be used to understand the present example. These alternate terms are used in the following example to illustrate how the method of the present invention may be used for the vending of a specific aspect of intellectual property. The present invention is not limited to the example below and when applied to another form of intellectual property other appropriate terms can be selected.

The web site in this example is set up such that any party who has filed a PCT patent application or a national patent application in one country can post their invention on a "for sale" board offering rights to their invention in one or more countries. These parties may be, for example, university research groups, start-up corporations, or small entities who do not have the resources to develop their intellectual property in other than their home country. These parties may also be very large corporations owning a very great amount of intellectual property, especially such large corporations wishing to license aspects of their non-core intellectual property so that they may focus on the development of their core business. The application owner would agree that listing the patent application on the board constituted a binding offer to sell some portion of the rights to the that application in an offered country for some consideration. As one example, the portion could be one half of the patent rights and the consideration could be nominal consideration, such as one U.S. dollar.

The form of the agreement will be governed by applicable laws. Where appropriate, the parties may be named co-owners of the patent application rights with an agreement to share all revenue, or the licensee alone may be named sole owner or assignee of these rights, but with an obligation to share all resulting revenue.

The web site operator publishes information describing available application rights on a web site. All information may be publicly available on the web site, or the site may be designed so that just abstracts and basic information, including the priority date, would be available to anyone and that only specific visitors, such as registered users who have provided credit card, banking information, or a deposit to ensure their ability to complete an agreement, will be able to view more detailed information, which could include, for example, the complete application and additional background information.

The web site operator may organize technology into groups, and incorporate various appearance and functional features into the listings. For example, color changes can be used to indicate that priority rights are about to expire, or that the application will soon enter a period where rush fees will be required for prosecution. Fig. 2 shows one example of how information from the "for sale" board may appear to a user accessing the site through a typical browser. In this figure, information describing a plurality of intellectual property rights available for purchase is displayed such that a user may scroll through the listed items. In this example, the application number for the parent application and the priority date are clearly indicated. The site can be constructed in any appropriate language, or have multiple language interfaces, and can offer rights related to a patent application filed in any country, or through the PCT.

A user interested in an intellectual property shown in Fig. 2 may retrieve more information on that property by clicking on a hypertext link or response button associated with that property. To that user's browser will then be sent a new page, such as the one shown in Fig. 3, containing detailed information on the specific invention and presentation of the terms of the licensing agreement. While in this example, the licensing agreement is standardized, both the agreement and the form of presentation may take any appropriate form. In the present example, included with information for each application is a fixed licensing price equal to the sum of a one dollar consideration payable to the licenser; all costs that may be required for translating, filing, and requesting examination of the application; and a fee to support the web site operation. This offer price, being the sum of the consideration, costs, and fee, will therefore vary in each country and according to the size of the application, number of claims, and field.

This fee may be the primary source of revenue for the site, or the site may be designed to earn a greater share of revenue from consulting services, advertising, or other revenue sources. The fee to the web site operator can be set according to their evaluation of business conditions. The web site operator may set a large fee or may set a small fee. It may be possible for the operator of the web site, by negotiating with patent attorneys and other service providers, to offer a license including prosecution services at a price even lower than the average prosecution costs in the country and field of the license.

The presentation of information can be divided into any suitable number of screens, but the final screen will contain a final button, such as the button 99 shown in Fig. 3, the clicking of which will transmit information which will seal the licensing agreement. An interested party, or, when the site is so designed, a registered buyer, discovering a technology they wish to license will simply click on one or more "license" buttons to enter into an agreement. Due to the value of the commodity, it is preferable that confirmation of terms be required in one or more subsequent screens.

In this example, once confirmed, payment will be immediately charged to the Licensee, and to the Licensor will be sent notification and the $1 consideration. In the method as embodied in this example, the immediate collection of initial prosecution fees protects the Licensor from unscrupulous

Licensees clicking on offered patents merely to keep them off the market, but this is not a requirement of the present invention.

Once parties have been joined and payment guaranteed, the site operator will arrange for necessary procedures, possibly including one or more of the translation of the application into another language, the filing of an application through an appropriate representative, and requesting examination of the new application. The party or parties entrusted with these tasks correspond to the authorized agents 4 shown in Fig. 1.

The agreement may preferably be designed such that the licensee will remain responsible for all costs through issuance and will be required to provide reasonable warning should they decide not to continue with prosecution of a patent application. The agreement may also preferably state that if the

Licensee for any reason decides not to continue, the licensor will be given the option of continuing prosecution on their own or having application relisted as available on the web site.

To promote and facilitate cooperation, it may be advantageous for the agreement to be constructed such that revenue from licensing, sublicensing, or use of the intellectual property, such as an invention protected by a patent resulting from a new application, will be shared by the two parties involved. Example 1.2

While in the above example, an amount of money or an obligation was exchanged for intellectual property, the method of the present invention may also be embodied as a method for facilitating, managing, or completing cross-licenses between intellectual property owners, such as patent holders.

In this example, upon receiving a licensing request through the Internet or other network corresponding to the network 100 shown in Fig. 1, the license vender, corresponding to the license vender 1 shown in Fig. 1, accesses a database to look up a relative value of the property owned by the potential licensee 3 and of the desire property. The owner of the desired property corresponds to the intellectual property owner 2 of Fig. 1. The license vender 1 then allows or completes a cross-license of the properties based on a weighting of the values of the properties to be exchanged. This may entail an actual exchange of rights, or may entail an exchange of accounting units representing points or shares of property involved in the cross-licensing agreement. Fig. 4 is a table showing example data for use in assigning relative weights to the aspects of intellectual property involved in the cross license. This example will be explained using several illustrations, each of which will refer to the table of Fig. 4. Illustration 1.2.1

In this illustration, across the top of the table, the numbers 401 through 404 represent different countries, while the numbers 421 through 425 down the leftmost column represent specific intellectual properties or aspects of those properties.

In this illustration, the numbers within each cell show a relative value given to the rights to use or exploit each intellectual property listed in the left column in the country indicated above that cell. In this table, a scale of 0 to 10 is employed. In this illustration, a 10 does not indicate that a particular intellectual property has great value in a specific country, but rather that rights in that country are not traded through this license vending system because the owner has reserved those rights or for any other reason. A 0 indicates that use in that country is free, perhaps because, for example, the owner did not or could not file an application in that country. Naturally, any suitable scale may be employed.

In this illustration, which is only one possible example, the parties have prenegotiated a cross- licensing agreement in which each party was assigned a certain number of value points corresponding to their contribution to the agreement. Accordingly, when, for example, a party wishes to use property 421 in country 402, which is listed as being available for cross licensing, they will send response through the network 100.

Upon receiving the response, the license vender in this case first verifies the identity of the sender and whether or not that party has sufficient points, at least 7 in this example, to license the requested rights. When a positive determination is obtained, the licensing is completed. The present invention allows these steps to occur automatically without human involvement. Illustration 1.2.2

In this illustration, the numbers 401 through 404 do not represent countries, but rather represent specific aspects of usage within a broader technology field. For example, in the field of telephony, number 401 may refer to mobile phone handsets, 402 may refer to base stations, 403 to providing voice service, and 404 to providing data service.

The numbers may represent unlimited rights to use an invention in a particular country, or each cell may be prorated according to a particular unit. In the example immediately above, each unit of rights regarding handsets may refer to 10,000 individual handsets, while each base station right may represent 10 base stations.

In such a case, when a party wished to license patent 422 to produce and sell 50,000 handsets, they may send a request as above. In this case, the server would search the database to determine whether that sender has 10 points, as 2 points are required for each 10,000 handset units. As in illustration 1.2.1, when a positive detennination is obtained, the licensing is completed automatically without human involvement.

Illustration 1.2.3

In this illustration, the numbers a 401 through 404 and 421 through 425 represent the same values as in illustration 1.2.1. However, in this illustration, each aspect of an intellectual property right is assigned a relative point value, but the parties are not preassigned a specific quota. Rather, license venders acts as an accounting center and, at the end of specific period, closes internal accounting books and credit or debits, possibly actual monetary values, are assigned to each participant. The period for opening the vender may be a single period, or may be a cyclical period.

When this method is employed, the burden of negotiating cross-licensing agreements is reduced. Not only does this reduce manpower costs, but this process allows parties to advantageously begin business planning earlier and to more quickly begin desired businesses. When the assigning of relative values is entrusted to a third party and or calculated by a mathematical formula, the entire procedure may be automated, realizing further savings and advantages for the participants and enabling the conglomeration of wide cross licensing of disparate technologies.

None of the above examples are limited to consideration of only country, desired use, and property. Any factor which may be tabulated and weighted may be used. Tables need not be in the form shown in Fig. 4. For example, a three or more dimensional table can be constructed. The tables themselves are not a necessary feature of the present invention. Any other means of correlating data may be preferably employed.

The values set in the fields of the table may be set according to any scale and, of course, a monetary scale such as U.S. dollars may also be used. When a monetary scale is employed, the dollars may be pseudo-dollars, or may represent an actual dollar price. When an actual dollar price is stored, the system may be configured so that a potential licensee having insufficient intellectual property of their own, may license the desired property using any combination of their own property and monetary remuneration.

In any of the above systems, the system can also be designed so that, rather than processing individual transactions, the license vender remains open for a specified period of time, at the end of which internal accounting books are closed and credit or debits, possibly actual monetary values, are assigned to each participant. The period for opening the vender may be a single period, or may be a cyclical period.

The relative values may be individually negotiated, may be set by a third party agreed upon by the parties, or may be decided by a mathematical fonnula agreed in advance. Especially when a mathematical formula is used, the value fields may be updated as desire to better facilitate a responsive online marketplace and further reduce the time and costs associated with negotiation. A formula could, for example, multiply an initial value by a factor such as the quarterly GDP of a particular nation.

The intellectual property involved in the transaction need not be from a single field. The present invention is also suited to arranging cross-licenses among disparate intellectual properties. When employed in this manner, the reduction in transaction costs can be especially significant and a great additional advantage is realized in that corporations can complete cashless transactions, thereby freeing capital which can be otherwise employed, such as applied towards the development of other business or research and development which may, in turn, lead to the creation of additional intellectual property. Embodiment 2 The present invention described above as a method for conducting trade of intellectual property, may also be embodied as a server system for completing intellectual property licensing agreements. An example of such a server system is depicted in Fig. 5. A server 550 comprises a property data storage section 555 storing information for a plurality of intellectual properties, a receiving component 551 for receiving requests to license intellectual properties, a license enabling component 552, and a licensing component 553.

When the server system of the present invention is operated, data stored in the server is made accessible to a plurality of client units 560 such that each client unit 560 is able to retrieve information related to one or more of intellectual properties stored in the property data section 551. The server system may be connected to the Internet in such a manner that the users of the client units 560 are able to view data from the property data storage section 555 through a browser. Such a browser window may have an appearance similar to that depicted in Fig. 2 or Fig. 3.

Information provided to the client units includes, for each intellectual property, description of contractual obligations associated with licensing that property and description of a manner in which a request to license that intellectual property may be communicated to the server system. This format may, for example, be a response form in which the user must input identifying information such as, for example, one or more of a name, company name, user name, password, or credit card information. This form may preferably include a plurality of screens requiring the user to positively confirm the terms of the agreement.

When the receiving component 551 receives a request to license an intellectual property indicating one of the plurality of intellectual properties and containing information identifying the user sending the request, the license enabling component 552 is asked to evaluate user information received by the receiving component. This evaluation may include, for example, verification of credit card information or cross-referencing of user information in the request with user information stored in a user information data section 554 of the server system or on a third party server. When it can be determined that the information is sufficient and indicates that the user meets pre-defined criteria required for licensing the intellectual property identified in the request, the license enabling component 552 outputs a permission to complete a licensing agreement. In response to the permission output by the licensing enabling component 552, the licensing component 553 then completes a licensing agreement in accordance with the request received by the receiving component and under terms as advertised by the server system. This agreement is completed automatically, without an additional step of negotiation. In most cases, it will be preferable that the server respond to the client with a notice that the agreement has been successfully completed. It may also be preferable to send a similar notice to the owner of the intellectual property, especially when that owner differs from the operator of the server system.

Any of the examples or variations described previously may also be embodied as software which, when executed by a computer causes the computer to perfonn steps of the above-described methods or to act as a server as described above. The present invention may also be embodied as a computer-readable medium on which is recorded such software.

As used in this specification, intellectual property refers to legal and moral rights to use a product of human intellect. This includes, for example, patent rights, patent application rights, trademark rights, rights to trade secrets and to copyrights. As used here, the term includes legal or moral rights to distribute or use a creative product such as a piece of music or software, but does not include that creative product itself. Intellectual property as used herein includes the class of property often referred to as "industrial property", and the present invention can therefore obviously be embodied as an industrial property vender or vending method.

The above embodiments, examples, and illustrations were described in detail in order to enable anyone skilled in the art to easily understand the best mode of operating the present invention. These examples are not intended to limit the scope of the invention as defined by the attached claims.

Industrial Applicability

The present invention is applicable to electronic commerce, to client-server based business systems, and to software supporting the operation of such systems.

What is claimed is:

1. A method for automating the licensing of intellectual property rights comprising the steps of: receiving from an owner of an intellectual property a permission to license rights to an aspect of that property, and making accessible on an electronic network to which a plurality of potential licensees have access, an offer to license the aspect of the intellectual property, in a manner such that the potential licensees are provided a means to indicate acceptance of the offer, wherein a license for the aspect of the intellectual property is granted to a potential licensee upon receipt of an indication of acceptance from that potential licensee, without an additional step of negotiation.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein the electronic network is the Internet and the offer is made accessible by being published on the World Wide Web.

3. The method according to claim 1 or claim 2 wherein a license is granted only to the first potential licensee to indicate acceptance, and the offer is withdrawn when the first acceptance is received.

4. The method according to claim 3 wherein the potential licensee indicates acceptance by transmitting a monetary payment.

5. The method according to claim 4 wherein the monetary payment is non-refundable.

6. The method according to claim 1 or claim 2 wherein the intellectual property is a patent or patent application.

7. The method according to claim 6 wherein the aspect of the intellectual property is a right to patent the invention in a country in which a patent application has yet to be filed.

8. The method according to claim 7 wherein the right derives from either the Paris Convention or the Patent Cooperation Treaty.

9. The method according to claim 6 wherein the intellectual property is a patent application filed in a country where examination must be requested and for which examination has yet to be requested.

Claims

10. The method according to claim 6 wherein the intellectual property is a patent issued in a country where maintenance fees must be paid, and not all maintenance fees have been paid for the patent.

11. The method according to claim 6 wherein the electronic network is the Internet and the offer is made accessible by being published on the World Wide Web.

12. The method according to claim 7 wherein the electronic network is the Internet and the offer is made accessible by being published on the World Wide Web.

13. The method according to claim 7 wherein the potential licensee indicates acceptance by transmitting a monetary payment and wherein a portion of this payment is designated for remuneration of a qualified agent for services related to preparing and prosecuting a patent application in the country for which rights have been licensed.

14. The method according to claim 9 wherein the potential licensee indicates acceptance by transmitting a monetary payment and wherein a portion of this payment designated for remuneration of a qualified agent for services related to requesting examination of the patent application.

15. The method according to claim 1 or claim 2 including, after the step of granting a license for the aspect of the intellectual property, a step of arranging for prosecution of an application to a national or regional patent office or intellectual property office related to the licensed aspect of the intellectual property.

16. A computer readable medium having stored thereon sequences of instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform the steps recited in claim 1.

17. A computer readable medium having stored thereon sequences of instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform the steps recited in claim 6.

18. A method for vending an intellectual property right using a client system, the method comprising the steps of: displaying information describing an intellectual property right that is available for purchase, the terms for purchasing that right, and indication of an action that may be used to purchase that right; in response the indicated action being performed, sending to a server system a request to purchase the described right; whereby, as a result of the above steps and without a further step of negotiation, the right is purchased. l

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the client system and server system communicate via the Internet.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the intellectual property is a patent or patent application.

21. The method according to claim 20 wherein the right is sold only to the first party to indicate acceptance by the indicated action, and the offer is withdrawn when the first acceptance is received.

22. A server system for completing intellectual property licensing agreements comprising: a data storage section storing information for a plurality of intellectual properties; a receiving component for receiving requests to license intellectual properties, each request indicating one of the plurality of the intellectual properties and containing information identifying the user sending the request; a license enabling component that evaluates user information received by the receiving component and outputs a permission to complete a licensing agreement when the evaluation is positive; and a licensing component that completes a licensing agreement in accordance with a request received by the receiving component and a permission output by the license enabling component.

23. The server system of claim 22 wherein the plurality of intellectual properties are patent or patent application rights.

24. The server system of claim 22 wherein the plurality of intellectual properties are rights to patent an invention in a country in which a patent application has yet to be filed.

25. The server system of claim 22 wherein the plurality of intellectual properties are rights to patent applications filed in a country where examination must be requested and for which examination has yet to be requested.

26. The method according to claim 1 or claim 2 wherein, in indicating acceptance, the potential licensee incurs or settles an obligation to license an aspect of intellectual property owned by the potential licensee.

27. The method according to claim 26 wherein the relative value of each of the aspects of the intellectual properties is set in advance.

28. The method according to claim 27 wherein the relative value is assigned by an entity acting as a cooperative or commercial gatherer of intellectual property rights.

29. The method according to claim 26 wherein the relative value is product of a mathematical formula into which is input a measure or average value of a real- world statistical indicator.

30. The method according to claim 26 wherein the relative value is assigned based on results of bidding during a bidding phase.

31. A method for licensing patent rights comprising the steps of: receiving from a party who has filed a patent application in a first country permission to offer for licensing an aspect of rights in a second country, these second country rights created by the filing of the application in the first country as a result of a bilateral or multilateral treaty to which both of the two countries are a party, said permission comprising a binding agreement; publishing on the World Wide Web information explaining the aspect of the property and providing a licensing agreement in such a manner that a user visiting the site may indicate a desire to enter into the agreement and license the aspect of the property; receiving from a user a request to license the aspect of the property; collecting from the user a monetary consideration; forwarding a portion of the collected monetary compensation to the licenser; forwarding a second portion of the collected monetary compensation to an agent in the second country, said agent being entrusted with the prosecution of a patent application in that second country, said patent application benefiting from rights encompassed in the licensing agreement.

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