Recorded patent assignments recently made public reveal patents on the move, to an NPE that appears to be collecting assets from a familiar source as prior litigated patents run into PTAB trouble; to an entity managed by what appears to be a relatively new monetization operation standing up; to a recent entrant into the litigation funding space; to entities associated with a frequent plaintiff-side law firm in Texas; and to a host of other plaintiffs recently filing suit.

Last month, “the inventor of DRM (digital rights management) & a pioneer in trusted computing” assigned nearly three dozen US patents to an entity tied to a New York-based investment management firm that a few years ago announced a move into the legal finance market. This outright acquisition of patents follows the conclusion, last fall, of another campaign in which the same New York firm appears to have held a financial interest.

In the second half of June 2016, RPX saw over 20 patent transfers to NPEs recorded with the USPTO. A number of those transactions involved patents that have been asserted in litigation against operating companies—some as recently as this past week.

In the first half of August 2015, RPX saw 14 patent transfers to non-practicing entities recorded with the USPTO.