Intellectual Property Advisory

Our IP transactions experts at Ocean Tomo, a part of J.S. Held, offer a purpose-built continuum of proven solutions to monetize and acquire patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, and domain intellectual property (IP). In collaboration with in-house technical experts, our monetization services and market platform are designed to efficiently close sell-side, buy-side, and license-based transactions. 

Ocean Tomo professionals have advised in over 1000 engagements involving IP worth over USD 10 billion and have closed IP transactions with a cumulative value exceeding USD 1.5 billion.

Further, Ocean Tomo has originated more successful IP monetization solutions than any other firm, including creation of the world’s oldest and most successful live patent auction.

> Learn more about our Intellectual Property Transactions expertise.

Ocean Tomo, a part of J.S Held, provides advisory services focused on a wide range of strategic financial matters, grounded by our ability to value intellectual property (IP) from a bottom-up qualitative perspective and top-down quantitative methodologies.

Ocean Tomo provides IP-based services and products to corporations rich in intangible assets who are looking for non-traditional ways to approach their structural, capital, and strategic issues.

Together with Ocean Tomo Investments Group, LLC, our FINRA-registered broker-dealer subsidiary, we work with clients to raise capital through intellectual property (IP) that is leveraged for a variety of strategic purposes. Our work facilitates strategic IP-driven transactions, mergers and acquisitions, IP portfolio optimization and rationalization, as well as competitive positioning.

> Learn more about our Investment Banking services.

We work with corporations, SMEs, entrepreneurs, and law firms advising clients to maximize value in strategic M&A opportunities, often leveraging the intellectual property (IP) as an underutilized (undervalued) asset class.

Ocean Tomo, a part of J.S. Held, has specific expertise assisting IP-rich companies as they consider a divestiture transaction, and in assisting financial investors in understanding the strengths, weaknesses, and value considerations of the IP portfolios of target companies. We have assisted both the buy-side and sell-side in these deals and, in each instance, provided valuable market knowledge that includes where in the IP value spectrum our client should focus its efforts so that deal value is either maximized (sell-side) or where the buy-side has been made aware of not only the true technical merits and revenue-generating potential of the assets being acquired, but also of recent case law and legislative activities that could have a future value impact.

> Learn more about our Corporate M&A services.

Our experts at Ocean Tomo, a part of J.S. Held, combine industry-leading intellectual property (IP) market expertise with decades of traditional financial restructuring experience to serve organizations impacted by credit and economic crises.

Additionally, the firm works closely with a limited number of in-house traditional financial restructuring experts to present joint solutions. 

We offer unique insight into a firm’s largest asset base and intangibles, along with its proven proprietary solutions, helping companies to appropriately reduce operational costs, further competitive market positioning, raise short term capital, and identify incremental long-term revenue streams.

> Learn more about our Corporate Restructuring services.

At Ocean Tomo, a part of J.S. Held, we help private equity firms understand the contribution of a target company’s intellectual property (IP) assets to enterprise value.

These insights help private equity firms better assess and manage the risks and opportunities associated with their investments. In addition to IP-focused diligence work, our IP advisory experts provide comprehensive investment banking and transaction diligence services to Private Equity and other clients. We advise on the buy and sell side and provide a range of capital raising activities to clients and companies looking for non-traditional ways to approach their structural, capital, or strategic issues.

> Learn more about our Private Equity services.

The Private Acquisitions team at Ocean Tomo, a part of J.S. Held, works with clients to make targeted buys of quality, hard-to-access IP portfolios.

In collaboration with in-house technical experts, Ocean Tomo Private Acquisitions is uniquely positioned to source IP that is technically, legally, and commercially sound by leveraging our transaction experience to our work with companies, universities, and labs on a broad range of critical IP-related needs. Our team of world-class buyers understand how to sift through the massive IP landscape to locate, diligence, negotiate, and present clients with only attractive acquisition opportunities, making the entire process easy and cost-efficient.

> Learn more about our Intellectual Property Acquisition services.

Our experts work with enterprises and law firms to evaluate and execute strategic intellectual property (IP) opportunities. 

We have extensive experience developing the appropriate IP strategy in the context of clients’ monetization needs. Ocean Tomo, a part of J.S. Held, is unique in our ability to integrate experts across our Intellectual Property practice to assist clients in developing and executing strategic patent monetization efforts, including expert insight, analytics & strategy, valuation, and transactions.

> Learn more about our Patent Monetization services.

The Private Sales team at Ocean Tomo, a part of J.S. Held, works with intellectual property (IP) owners seeking to sell high-value, market-ready IP portfolios. 

We deliver specialized expertise to sell IP portfolios where one or more of the following criteria are important:

• Large expected value between $2.5 million and $50 million or more
• Confidentiality of offer driven by strategic concerns of the seller
• In-depth diligence requiring substantial knowledge transfer
• A controlled or limited number of potential buyers meeting strict seller criteria

> Learn more about our IP Private Sales expertise.

The Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask® Market (OTBA) platform was built to further enhance intellectual property (IP) liquidity and transaction transparency. OTBA serves a broad community of active buyers and sellers, providing a platform to purchase or sell patents and patent applications globally. The Bid-Ask Market is supported by Ocean Tomo Transactions and affiliate international voice brokers. Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask Market® is an effective solution for buyers and sellers of patent portfolios where a simplified process is important, including low transaction costs, standard transaction documents, security deposit account and transaction payment services, and live customer support.

Further advancing industry transparency, all offers to buy (“Bids”), offers to sell (“Asks”), and final transaction prices are posted. All Bids and Asks are placed online or through an Ocean Tomo Transactions voice broker utilizing standard processes and transaction documents.

> Learn more about the Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask Market®.

> Visit the Ocean Tomo Bid-Ask Market®.

Ocean Tomo’s investment experts offer two types of investment research: long-term research support to fundamental investment groups looking to add intellectual property (IP) insight into their alpha-generating processes and special situations research support to investment groups looking to execute specific trades where IP is the driving catalyst.

Fundamental IP research integrates quantitative and qualitative methods to identify competitive positions made defensible by IP or the ability to drive enhanced returns through more efficient utilization of IP portfolios. Special situations research supports IP-based change of control, activist, distressed, patent arbitrage, and litigation outcome investing.

Ocean Tomo is pleased to provide a comprehensive look at current industry trends and deal activity in several technology areas. As a financial advisor with a focus on technology and intellectual property (IP), Ocean Tomo has gained unique insights related to the intellectual property driving the development of a variety of technology areas.

Ocean Tomo’s Industry Reports share unique insights related to technology and the intellectual property driving business value and have been developed across the following industries:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Autonomous Vehicles
• Blockchain & Cryptocurrency
• Cannabis
• Cybersecurity
• Federal Use of Technology
• IP Licensing Companies
• Nuclear Energy
• Semiconductors

> Learn more about Investment Research by Ocean Tomo, a part of J.S. Held.

Ocean Tomo’s suite of patent-based indexes provide investors, asset managers, and financial advisors with compelling investment options and viable benchmarks.

The indexes are IP-centric: inclusion in an Ocean Tomo Index reflects corporate intellectual property value relative to traditional financial value. The transformation of the global economy to a knowledge economy has placed an unprecedented focus on companies’ intangible assets, including intellectual property assets such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, and other intangible assets.

The economic inversion in the relative importance of tangible assets to intangible assets experienced over the last three decades carries significant implications for the investment community.

By constructing indexes around the fundamental indicators of performance in the knowledge economy, our indexes give the investment community benchmarks for the leading asset of the knowledge economy: intellectual capital.

> Learn more about Ocean Tomo Patent Indexes.

Our IP advisory experts at Ocean Tomo, a part of J.S. Held, facilitate intellectual property (IP) securitizations by understanding, managing, and liquidating IP assets in exchange for capital to meet clients’ strategic business needs.

Our experts work with our network of institutional investors to structure and execute the transaction. We consider investments in a wide variety of technology categories and work to tailor the transaction to meet investment and transaction objectives. Benefits of royalty securitization include:

• Up-front cash payment by investor
• Deploy cash to fund new R&D
• Non-dilutive
• Revenue to improve financial performance

> Learn more about our Royalty Securitization services.