Some of the most established names in acquisition and monetisation have been back on the market in recent months 

Wi-Fi and cellular portfolios are attracting the attention of the biggest players in patent monetisation. That is a strong indication of how “hot” both areas are currently.  

In a quarterly filing covering the period to 31^st March 2025, Acacia Research told its investors it had acquired a portfolio of Wi-Fi 7 SEPs, marking a return to that market following a 2021 deal in the Wi-Fi 6 space. “One of the significant challenges in the intellectual property industry continues to be quality patent intake due to the challenges and complexity associated with the current patent environment,” its filing stated. 

And Fortress Investment Group made a significant splash when it was reported in April to have scooped up thousands of 4G/5G patents from Shanghai Langbo. 

The market continues to assign considerable value to IP assets related to standardised technologies. This underlines the benefits of the availability of efficient and transparent pool licences in these same areas.  

Newracom deals more WLAN-related patents 

• Newracom transferred a portfolio including 28 US patent assets to Avalon Technology Solutions, a Texas LLC. 

• The transaction comes four years after the fabless semiconductor company made a major disposal to Atlas Global Technologies, an Acacia affiliate that has mounted a Wi-Fi 6 litigation campaign 

• Acacia’s most recent quarterly filing states that its Atlas Technologies portfolio includes its Wi-Fi 6 holdings while its Avalon Technologies portfolio covers Wi-Fi 7 SEPs and confirms that it acquired one new Wi-Fi 7 portfolio in Q1 2025 

Netgear disposal seeds Wi-Fi device campaign 

• Netgear transferred 12 patent families to ESTELGIA, LLC in February  

• Patents mention WLAN networks, base stations and LTE 

• Reportedly, a US litigation campaign targeting Wi-Fi device vendors has resulted 

Acer assigns patents to Malikie Innovations 

• Acer Inc transferred 17 patent families to Irish licensor Malikie Innovations last year 

• Rights deal with antenna technology and mobile communications devices 

• Malikie has recently been in the news for a campaign asserting former BlackBerry patents related to Wi-FI 

Fortress’s big 4G/5G play 

• In a series of February assignments, Shanghai Langbo Communication Technology transferred over 200 US patents to Apogee Networks, LLC 

• According to media reports, Apogee is a Fortress affiliate, and the 4G/5G-focused deal involved a total global portfolio with over 1,000 assets 

• The transaction follows Langbo’s earlier disclosed sale of a portfolio covering cellular vehicle to everything (C-V2X) SEPs to an affiliate of Dominion Harbor Group 

Former foes HTC, Ericsson link up 

• HTC transferred seven US patent assets to Ericsson in March, along with some global counterparts 

• The patents deal with mobile and electronic device interfaces and features and have applications dates spanning 2008-2014 

• The two companies engaged in legal dispute that resulted in the first US breach-of-FRAND appeal verdict in 2021 

• Ericsson recently said it is open to both acquisition and divestment opportunities 

ZTE-InterDigital reunite for deal 

• ZTE transferred a global portfolio including 15 US patent assets to InterDigital affiliate DRNC Holdings in January 

• The transaction comes five years after a previous assignment involving the same parties 

• It has been reported that the two companies recently renewed a licensing agreement 

• The patents appear to address a wide range of technologies including various mobile device features 

Nokia acquires patents in Amazon truce 

• Amazon transferred 12 US patents to Nokia in March 

• Some of the patents are related to e-commerce; none of the rights was litigated in the recent dispute between the two companies 

• On 31st March, the two companies announced the settlement of a video codec patent dispute involving court actions in the US, UK, UPC, Germany, India and Brazil 

Anthropic AI dips into IBM patent well 

• Anthropic is the leading AI lab that operates the Claude family of large language models 

• In May, it obtained 22 US patents from IBM and subsequently assigned a security interest in the portfolio to Morgan Stanley 

• The company does not appear to have had an active internal patent filing programme, but it recently advertised an open role for an “IP counsel, patents” 

• Anthropic is at the centre of one of the AI world’s most closely watched IP disputes – recently defeating a US District Court lawsuit over its use of copyrighted works to train AI models  

Transactions watch is a bimonthly Sisvel Insights feature. Our aim is to help patent owners, technology users and their advisers stay abreast of patent transfers with the potential to affect the licensing landscape. It is entirely based on public records and news reports. 

The main focus is on fields of technology subject to significant standardisation – including mobile communications, wireless networking and multimedia – but we also highlight deals in other technology areas that catch our attention.  

Discussion of the technology covered by various patents is based solely on keywords in the patent titles – readers can review the patents in full via the linked transaction documents.