Virtual Reality (VR) IP Assets ommercialization Viability … Whitepaper … · ·...

Virtual Reality (VR) IP Assets Commercialization Viability Analysis

December 2012

Copyright © 2012, INDUS TechInnovations, All rights reserved.

Virtual Reality (VR) IP Assets - Commercialization Viability Analysis 2

Objective This report assesses the viability for commercialization of Intellectual Property (IP) assets related to

Virtual Reality (VR) technology, which involves computer-simulated worlds to stipulate the sense of

reality. It often includes stereoscopic displays to mimic our natural visual sensory input. Other simulated

sensory feedback, such as haptic or audio feedback, also form part of VR technology. VR technology has

been around for many decades, but its potential was not realized until computer graphics matured and

computing capacity became adequate and affordable. Today, VR is extensively used in gaming,

entertainment, training and education. VR also has many important medical applications.

This analysis encompasses the overall landscape of Virtual Reality IP assets in terms of the major patent

holders and recorded transactions. Assignees with VR patent assets with medical or gaming applications

are identified. A list of potential licensees or buyers of VR-related IP assets is arrived at.

Workflow 1. Determine the major patent asset holders in the area of Virtual Reality technologies.

2. Identify relevant transactions (assignment transfers) in the area of Virtual Reality technologies.

3. Obtain the forward citations of patents related to the relevant technology and determine the

patent asset holders of the more recently filed forward-cited patents.

4. Determine the patent asset holders of VR IP assets with medical and gaming applications.

5. Combine the findings from the above steps to create a short-list of potential licensees or buyers

in VR technologies.

Analysis The analysis contained in this report is done for VR technology in general. There are many sub-

technologies involved in this domain, such as stereoscopic displays, haptic devices, tracking

systems, and computer algorithms.

Patent assets related to Virtual Reality are identified using a combination of keywords, IPC

codes, and US classification codes to obtain the top patent asset holders in the technology area.

A search of the assignment database is performed using similar parameters. This yields a list of

the various buyers and sellers of patent assets addressing this technology and helps in

determining the most active amongst them.



Assignees for recently filed forward-cited patents in VR technologies are determined.

Assignees with VR patent assets with applications in either assisting medical or surgical

procedures; or addressing gaming are separately identified.

The analysis of this report is based on the patent assets of various geographies, assignment

transfer data provided by the USPTO, and related corporate information available in the public

domain. All patent counts mentioned are only indicative.

Patent Filings in Virtual Reality Technology The charts below show the filing trends for patents in Virtual Reality technology. Figure 1 shows the top

patent holders in VR technology and Figure 2 shows the overall filing trends and the top patent asset

holders from 1993 onwards. The list of top patent asset holders changes somewhat if we look at recent

patent filings (from 2009 onwards). The recent filing trend (starting 2009 onwards) is shown in Figure 3.

IBM, Canon, Sony; followed by Philips, Samsung and Microsoft are the key patent holders overall. Most

of these assignees reappear in the list of top recent filers as well (2009 onwards). Other companies that

have filed patents in this technology in recent times include Osterhout Group, Nintendo, Disney, Intuitive

Surgical and Pantech.

Figure 1. Top Patent Holders of Virtual Reality IP assets with indicative patent counts



Figure 2. Assignee trends by filing year (from 1993 onwards)

Figure 3. Assignee trends by filing year (from 2009 onwards)

Figure 4. Filing trends of the technology

IBM

CANON

SONY

PHILIPS

SAMSUNG

MICROSOFT CORP

OSTERHOUT GROUP INC

NINTENDO CO LTD

SHARP

PANASONIC

ALCATEL LUCENT

SIEMENS

IMMERSION CORP

DISNEY

KOREA ELECTRONICS TELECOMM

0

102

204

1 1 5 21 3 4 1 2 3 1 3 2556

318 3 2

6 2 4 7 9 3 9 6 3 10 11 14 18 16 14 9 1 7

4 2 5 11 9 14 14 4 16 3 3 6 3 2 1 2 9 12 18 6

3 5 21 17 12 4 5 9 2 7 7 12 1 1 5 2 1

2 1 1 5 2 5 3 14 19 332

1 1 2 1 2 3 1 3 4 4 6 6 3 12 11 5 3

30 311 2 1 1 5

393

5 5 7 8 8 1 4 1 3 1 3 2

3 2 5 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 3 6 1 2 8 2

3 2 2 10 4 1 1 2 2 3 8 1

1 16 7 1 1 4 1 1 2 1

1 2 2 3 3 4 2 2 3 2 2 3 4 1 1

3 4 1 1 1 6 9 5 1

1 1 1 1 1 3 4 3 2 4 3 5 1

Assig

nee

No

. o

f P

ate

nts

Filing Date

SAMSUNG

OSTERHOUT GROUP INC

NINTENDO CO LTD

SONY

IBM

MICROSOFT CORP

CANON

DISNEY

INTUITIVE SURGICAL INC

QUALCOMM INC

PANTECH CO LTD

KOREA ELECTRONICS TELECOMM

0

50

20

09

20

10

20

11

20

12

14 1933

2

30 31

5

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3

9 12 186

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8 3 2

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110

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121

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Filing Year

Pri

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ear



Transactions in Virtual Reality Technology Patents Table 1 is a compiles a list of the top companies that acquired patent assets (execution date from 1993

onwards) after analyzing the transactions (assignment transfers) in the area of Virtual Reality technology.

Assignee count

GEOMAGIC, INC. 16

AVAYA INC. 14

IMMERSION CORP 13

CANON 11

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 11

SUN MICROSYSTEMS 9

KAPERNELLY ASSETS AG, LLC 8

NASA 7

NIH 7

BONANZA TECHNOLOGIES LLC 6

NANT HOLDINGS IP, LLC 5

INTELLECTUAL VENTURES HOLDING LLC 4

LIGHTSPACE TECHNOLOGIES AB 4

CAE HEALTHCARE INC. 3

CARESTREAM HEALTH INC. 3

GC NORTH ACQUISITION, LLC 3

GOOGLE 3

INDIGO TECHNOLOGIES, LLC 3

KWOK, CHU & SHINDLER LLC 3

ROXIO INC. 3

TEXTRON INNOVATIONS INC. 3

TRANSPACIFIC IMAGE, LLC 3

Table 1. Top New Assignees (Buyers) of Virtual Reality patents showing transaction count

The seller (Assignor) and buyer (Assignee) matrix shown in Figure 5 is created using assignment transfer

data for patent assets addressing Virtual Reality technology. Some of the sellers of patent assets include

Sensable Technologies, Nortel, Virtual Technologies and Mixed Realty Systems Lab. Buyers of these

patent assets include Geomagic, Avaya, Immersion Corp and Canon. Government organizations like the

National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Health (NIH) and NASA have funded research at

various U.S. Universities in this technology area. This is indicated by patent assignment transfers from

the Universities to these organizations. The Universities may however still continue to enjoy IP rights to

the research as under the Bayh-Dole Act.



Figure 5. Top Assignee and Assignor matrix showing transaction counts

Figure 6 shows the trend plot for the total number of transactions in the area of Virtual Reality

technology by execution year. There has been a marked increase in the number of transactions

beginning in the 2005-2007 period. The upward trend in the number of transactions continues till 2012.

Figure 6. Transaction trend based on Execution Year

Figure 7 shows the top buyers of patent assets in this technology area by the execution year of

assignment transfer.

GEOMAGIC, INC.

AVAYA INC

IMMERSION CORP

NSF

CANON KK

SUN MICROSYSTEMS INC

KAPERNELLY ASSETS AG

NIH

NASA

BONANZA TECHNOLOGIES LLC

NANT HOLDINGS IP, LLC

LIGHTSPACE TECHNOLOGIES AB

INTELLECTUAL VENTURES HOLDING LLC

OTHER ASSIGNEES

0

81

162

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1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

NO

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EXECUTION YEAR



Sun Microsystems emerges as one of the early buyers of IP assets in this technology, acquiring patents

from VPL Newco Inc. in 1997. Other early buyers of patents include Immersion Corp which purchased

patents from Virtual Technologies in 2000 and 2002; and Canon which acquired patent assets from

Mixed Reality Systems in 2003.

Recent acquirers have included Avaya Inc. in 2009, Kapernelly Systems in 2008, and NANT Holdings in

2011. The most recent recorded transactions in 2012 have been Geomagic acquiring assets from

Sensable Technologies and Bonanza Technologies acquiring assets from Southwest Research Institute.

Figure 7. Transaction trends of Top Assignees based on Execution Year

Citation Analysis The overall patent assets related to Virtual Reality technology are initially obtained and their forward

citations are identified. The filing date of the documents in the forward citation set is then restricted to

Jan 2009 or later, to obtain a list of assignees who have recently cited VR patent assets. This list is shown

in Table 2.

Recent citations by these companies indicate that they are working on, and have recently filed patents

addressing, VR technologies and could well be potential licensees or interested buyers for similar

patents.

Within the set of Virtual Reality patents, we have picked a couple of applications for closer study. These

are the application of VR in (i) Assisting medical or surgical procedures, and (ii) Gaming. Some of these

recently filed forward citations have been manually scanned to verify that the inventions disclosed

GEOMAGIC, INC.

AVAYA INC

IMMERSION CORP

NSF

CANON KK

SUN MICROSYSTEMS INC

KAPERNELLY ASSETS AG

NIH

NASA

BONANZA TECHNOLOGIES LLC

NANT HOLDINGS IP, LLC

LIGHTSPACE TECHNOLOGIES AB

INTELLECTUAL VENTURES HOLDING LLC

OTHER ASSIGNEES

0

11.5

23

19

93

19

94

19

95

19

96

19

97

19

98

19

99

20

00

20

01

20

02

20

03

20

04

20

05

20

06

20

07

20

08

20

09

20

10

20

11

20

12

161

133

10

1 1 1 1 1 3 2 1

11

9

81 2 2 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

6

5

4

2 2

1 1 2 2 15

126 8 5

1320

6

20

10 13 1623

15

AS

SIG

NE

E(B

UY

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)

NO

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FT

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NS

AC

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EXECUTION YEAR



address one of these two applications. Assignees holding VR patent assets that address either or both

the abovementioned technologies have been highlighted in Table 2.

ASSIGNEE COUNT

SILVERBROOK RES PTY LTD 8

MICROSOFT 8

SAMSUNG 4

LG 4

PHILIPS 3

HONEYWELL INT 3

MWI VETERINARY SUPPLY CO 3

DIGITALOPTICS CORP 3

IBM 3

YOOSTAR ENTERTAINMENT GROUP 2

PANASONIC 2

RESEARCH IN MOTION LTD 2

AT&T 2

INVENSENSE INC. 2

VEDERI, LLC 2

Table 2. Assignees with recent filings citing patents related to Virtual Reality (filing date from Jan 2009)

[Highlighted assignees hold VR patents with Medical or Gaming applications]

Virtual Reality in Medical applications and Gaming Table 3 provides a list of VR patent holders having assets with applications in assisting medical or surgical

procedures. The top patent holders in this sub-technology include Intuitive Surgical Inc., Siemens,

Bracco Imaging; followed by Immersion Corp and Kapernelly Assets AG.



Patent Holder Count

INTUITIVE SURGICAL INC. 17

SIEMENS 12

BRACCO IMAGING SPA 11

IMMERSION CORP 10

KAPERNELLY ASSETS AG, LLC 8

VIRTUAL PROTEINS B V 4

CAE INC. 3

GENERAL ELECTRIC 3

IMPERIAL INNOVATIONS LIMITED 3

UNIV ALABAMA 3

UNIV MONASH 3

UNIV TEXAS TECH 3

US NASA 3

Table 3. List of VR patent holders addressing medical applications

Table 4 provides a list of the VR patent holders having assets with applications in gaming. The top patent

holders of VR technology patents addressing this sub-technology include Nintendo Co Ltd., Sony,

Microsoft followed by Konami Corp and Namco Ltd.

Patent Holder Count

NINTENDO CO LTD 20

SONY 17

MICROSOFT CORP 12

KONAMI CORP 8

NAMCO LTD 8

EDGE 3 TECHNOLOGIES INC. 5

IBM 5

MOTION GAMES LLC 5

ATLANTIS CYBERSPACE INC. 4

GAMECASTER INC. 4

KICO SOUND LLC 4

NANT HOLDINGS IP, LLC 4

PHILIPS 4

SEARETE LLC 4

VIRTUAL PROTEINS B V 4

Table 4. List of VR patent holders addressing gaming applications



Potential Licensees or Buyers We synthesize our findings from each of the preceding analyses to arrive at a list of potential licensees or

buyers for Virtual Reality patent assets. These potential licensees or buyers are enumerated in Table 5

along with the rationale for including them in the list.

Potential Licensee or

Buyer Rationale Reference

IMMERSION CORP

One of the top patent asset holders Figure 1, Figure 2

Acquired patents in VR technology Table 1, Figure 5, Figure 7

Holds VR patents with medical applications Table 3

IBM

One of the top patent asset holders with recent filings Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3

Citation analysis indicates current development of similar technologies

Table 2

Holds VR patents with gaming applications Table 4

MICROSOFT



Table 2


PHILIPS

One of the top patent asset holders Figure 1, Figure 2


Table 2


SIEMENS One of the top patent asset holders with recent filings Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3


INTUITIVE SURGICAL INC.

One of the top patent asset holders with recent filings Figure 3


KAPERNELLY ASSETS AG,

LLC

Acquired patents in VR technology Table 1, Figure 5, Figure 7


CAE INC. Acquired patents in VR technology Table 1, Figure 5, Figure 7


NINTENDO CO LTD



Table 5. List of Potential Licensees or Buyers for VR patent assets



About Relecura

Relecura is the flagship product of INDUS TechInnovations. It is a web-based patent and portfolio

analysis platform that uses a knowledge discovery framework to simplify IP analysis for prior art searches

and IP commercialization activities. For more details visit www.relecura.com or write to us at

[email protected].

Disclaimer This document is provided for information purposes only and the contents hereof are subject to change

without notice. This document, including the information and analysis and any opinion or

recommendation, is neither legal advice nor intended for investment purposes. This document is not

warranted to be error-free, nor subject to any other warranties or conditions, whether expressed orally

or implied in law, including implied warranties and conditions of merchantability or fitness for a

particular purpose. INDUS TechInnovations specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this

document and no contractual obligations are formed either directly or indirectly by this document.

http://www.relecura.com/

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