ipValue, a new company launched by the iFormation Group, has signed an exclusive six-year patent licensing contract with British Telecommunications' R&D division to help it reap more revenue from its intellectual properties.

David Pecaut, the president and chief executive of iFormation Group, said the deal between ipValue and BTexact Technologies, the research division of British Telecommunications, could be worth over $100 million in royalties over the life of the contract.

ipValue has rights to work with BTexact's existing and future patents by finding companies that could benefit from licensing the intellectual properties, he said. ipValue and BTexact would then split the royalty fees from the licenses.

"Patents and knowledge (properties) have become more valuable and have been growing dramatically over the last ten years," Pecaut told atNewYork. Patents related to telecommunications and electronics are especially fertile industries for licensing opportunities, he said, because of the financial pressures within the hypercompetitive telecommunications industry.

Joe Zier, president of the New York-based ipValue, said in today's environment, when companies have cut costs to the bone and need to find new ways of generating incremental revenues, intellectual property represents the single largest opportunity for companies to generate bottom line profits.

" . . . "

It launched ipValue in late 2001 with $30 million in backing. In addition to its New York headquarters, the 16-employee company also has offices in London and in the Silicon Valley region.

BT's worldwide patent portfolio holds about 14,000 patents or patents pending related to telecommunications, multimedia and wireless technologies, the company said.

Pecaut said ipValue will operate as an outsourcing company, taking on the costs of researching patent opportunities and finding the companies that could benefit from licensing the inventions and then splitting the fees from the royalties with its clients.

Many of BTexact's patents were filed in England, where its research and development labs are located. The contract with BTexact gives ipValue the rights to license the patents to companies based in the United States and Canada, with non-exclusive rights in Japan.

Pecaut said within the past six or seven years, many companies have begun to look for ways to exploit the commercial value of their technology patents.

IBM, for example, reaps close to $2 billion a year in revenue from royalty fees and in 2001, it was awarded a record 3,411 patents, making it the first company to surpass 3,000 patents in one year.

But licensing intellectual property is a fairly specialized field, Pecaut added, and many companies have not been able to exploit their R&D work as effectively as IBM.

In addition to telecommunications, the company is eyeing patent licensing opportunities in the aerospace and defense electronics industries.

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