Alexander Poltorak was interviewed by Seattle, Wash. public radio station KUOW about Facebook's purchase of hundreds of patents from Microsoft - which had just purchased those same patents from AOL. ("Microsoft Gives Facebook a Leg Up in Patent Wars" KUOW.org - April 24, 2012)
Excerpt of transcript: Alexander Poltorak is chairman of General Patent Corporation, the country's oldest patent licensing firm.
He says technology companies are now keenly interested in buying up patents in order to protect themselves from patent infringement lawsuits. It's a kind of mutual assured destruction, he says, where the bigger the arsenal, the less likely a company will be sued.
Poltorak says as recently as last summer, technology patents were being sold for about $600,000 a piece. The recent deal with Microsoft, he says, puts the price of a patent at more than $1.3 million.
Poltorak: "Ah, there is no limit, it's like any commodity, the price is driven by the law of supply and demand. Patents are in limited supply and the demand for the patents is on the rise, and that translates into a rise in prices."