Language:

Intellectual Property Services

Home: Intellectual Property Services: Semiconductor company takes program approach and cuts licensing fees

Semiconductor company takes program approach and cuts licensing fees by $80 million

“Chipworks found concrete evidence that covered most of our adversary’s revenue. Its expertise and ability to deliver substantive proof was extremely valuable in the renewal negotiation.”

- Director of Intellectual Property

Situation

A multi-billion dollar semiconductor business, holding an IP portfolio of limited value, had signed a 10 year cross-license agreement with an aggressive company resulting in royalty payments topping $15 million annually. With the license up for renewal and more than $100 million at risk, the Board of Directors directed the IP team to drastically reduce royalty payments.

Challenges

Starting with no Claim Charts, prove the value of the client’s patent portfolio against the aggressor’s products
Significantly reduce its licensing fees of more than $100 million over the next ten years

Chipworks Solution

Implemented a two-phase program approach
Phase I: Mapped the client’s portfolio against an initial investigation of the aggressor’s technology to produce Claim Charts on nine patents in six months
Phase II: Concluded a comprehensive portfolio review and produced additional Claim Charts
Delivered 34 Claim Charts covering more than 90% of the aggressor’s revenue in 30 months – a result made possible by the program approach

Results

Using a program approach, Chipworks enabled the company to negotiate a 50% reduction of licensing fees
Saved the company nearly $80 million over the life of the renegotiated license
Enabled the company to recoup more than 30 times its investment with Chipworks

Download Printable Version

Download Your Complimentary Article

“A large U.S. company was targeting us, and we needed to defend ourselves. Using internal resources we were able to produce 4 claim charts, but that wasn’t enough. We called Chipworks. In eight weeks Chipworks produced 12 claim charts that were extremely valuable in the renewal negotiation.”
-- General Patent Counsel, Asian Electronics Company

Did You Know?

Chipworks has the largest library of semiconductor parts and documentation worldwide? Our Prior Art Library is filled with data books and manuals dating back to the 1960's.

Subscribe to Updates