Quarter Century Creating Wealth from the Wealth of Ideas®
Suffern, N.Y., June 28, 2012 − Inventors' and patent owners' most steadfast ally in the fight for their rights, General Patent Corporation (GPC), a premier patent licensing and enforcement firm, turned 25 years old this month.
Founded in 1987 by Alexander Poltorak, General Patent Corporation pioneered the contingency patent enforcement business model. The company, the oldest such business in the world, has grown into a leading intellectual property (IP) organization providing IP licensing and assertion as well as IP advisory and brokerage services.
Both managing and financing comprehensive patent enforcement campaigns on behalf of its clients, GPC has fought to preserve and enforce patent holders' rights, and in the process has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing fees and royalties for its clients which include inventors, patent holders and universities.
"During the last 25 years, legislative and court decisions have severely narrowed the rights of inventors while making it easier for corporate interests to get away with infringement," observes Alexander Poltorak, General Patent's Chairman and CEO, who co-authored Essentials of Intellectual Property and Essentials of Licensing Intellectual Property, both published by John Wiley & Sons. "Despite these challenges, an intellectual property industry emerged from an arcane area of law to a board-level business discipline. Patents have become the new currency of the knowledge-based economy."
One enforcement campaign has generated more than $60 million in recovered damages and royalty revenues through the licensing and enforcement of a single patent. That campaign − among General Patent Corporation's most significant − involved filing several patent infringement lawsuits and has resulted in more than 40 licenses covering nearly 100 percent of the wireless telephone services sold in the U.S. Licensees include such major carriers as AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile, as well as many regional carriers.
"The economics of patent infringement litigation dictates that patent owners partner with a firm like GPC," adds Anthony Amaral, General Patent Corporation's Chief IP Counsel. "Litigation costs for a typical infringement action can range upward to as much as $5 million, making it virtually impossible for most inventors, and many businesses and universities, to go it alone."
In addition to its main business in patent licensing and enforcement, GPC affiliate IP Holdings LLC is an IP-centric merchant banking organization that provides IP valuation and IP advisory services.
Patent brokerage services are provided through a subsidiary of IP Holdings, IPOfferings LLC, a patent brokerage firm acquired by General Patent in 2010.