Metis to take part in active auction in US

Deputy Business Editor

Saturday 14 July 2012

Metis Partners is selling off intellectual property assets from technology business Elonics at an auction in the United States.

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greig cameron deputy business editor

A range of patents and trademarks – which have a list price of $150,000 (£97,000) – are up for grabs in what is thought to be the first time a Scottish company has participated in the ICAP Patent Brokerage event in San Francisco.

Proceeds from the sale will go towards paying creditors of Livingston-based Elonics.It had attracted backing from the likes of Sir Brian Souter and Sir Tom Farmer, while Wolfson Microelectronics co-founder David Milne was on its board. However, even though it sold 350,000 of its radio frequency tuners it was put into liquidation earlier this year.Glasgow-based Metis was tasked by liquidators with valuing and marketing the intellectual property which Elonics had created.Stephen Robertson. Metis chief executive, said: "This is the first time we have done an active auction like this but it is something which is becoming a part of the global market for intellectual property."The auction is really about trying to focus as much liquidity and interest as we can to really push up the price and value we get. We have already done serious marketing and already had a number of expressions of interest."The auction is to maximise the recovery for the creditors. ICAP said to us they thought the Elonics assets would lend themselves to the auction."Our corporate recovery service has always been focused on maximising the recovery and return for creditors but through the use of patent auctions, the exposure of Elonics's assets to a worldwide audience is on a different scale."Nat Baldwin, head of corporate recovery at Metis, said: "We go out to the companies and do an IP discovery phase. "It is not as easy as getting the assets on a plate. We have to actually go and find out what they are."We look at formal intellectual property, as with patents and trademarks, and beyond that we look at softer stuff like knowhow, things which are written down and unregistered trademarks."We package that all up, then build a specific database of people who we think might be interested in the technology and target them."In this case we have contacted well over 1000 people across the world in relation to this specific technology."Staff from the Metis office in Berkeley, California, will attend the auction which has been marketed to more than 30,000 ICAP contacts.It takes place later this month and includes the domain name patents.com which has a starting price of $2.5 million.There is also intellectual property relating to a mobile payments system and an electronic greetings card system.Mr Robertson added: "We have a global database of IP buyers and brokers plus corporate of the sectors Elonics were in."We have set minimum offer levels at $150,000 but we don't know what we will get."We have also just found out what was a US-patent application has gone to grant and that adds significant weight to the value of the portfolio."ICAP Patent Brokerage is an arm of London-listed ICAP plc.

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Metis to take part in active auction in US

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