Friday, January 21, 2011

Intellectual Ventures Competitor Files For IPO

A Silicon Valley firm formed by two, former ex-Intellectual Ventures executives, has filed for an IPO, according to an S-1 filing Friday. According to San Francisco-based RPX, it is looking to raise up to $100M in an IPO on the Nasdaq Global Market. The firm is venture backed by Index Ventures, Charles River Ventures, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and was founded by John Amster and Geoffrey Barker. Amster was most recently General Manager of Strategic Acquisitions and Vice President of Licensing at Intellectual Ventures, which he left in 2008. Barker was Vice President, Licensing at Intellectual Ventures until 2008. Both RPX and Intellectual Ventures acquire and license patents, both saying their purpose is to help large corporations avoid patent related risk and expenses. Both are doing so by "aggregating" patents--ie pooling large pools of patents, and cross licensing them across participating firms, which allows those firms to avoid patent lawsuits from so-called "patent trolls".