Ero and others,
Some great information posted by many here recently. I particularly like some of your thoughts in this recent post.
In fact, I think some of the answers to many questions here can be found by reading the patents themselves. That information may be found at the company's own site.
In general, as you mention, there is nobody out there in this entire space that knows IP, and its ability to be monetized, better than Doug Croxall and Erich Spangenberg.
I've said it before that having IPNav sourcing patents for Marathon not only gives them a first look at quality IP, but it also enables those patents to be properly vetted internally by the IPNav team, prior to them being purchased by Marathon.
I think it obvious that any patents acquired by Marathon, and they are now up to 7 different portfolio's, have been purchased on the heals of some very thorough due diligence.
I also understand that some here would like more information as to how the company's revenues and earnings may be expected to scale. I would again merely point out that anything the company publicly discloses has the very real potential of being used against them in any one of these on-going patent suits. Whether it is DSS, PRKR, VHC, ACTG or MARA, all must be mindful to not inadvertently undermine their own ability to successfully monetize their patents.
Currently the company has clearly base loaded their business, creating a strong foundation for future growth, exactly as stated by Croxall in a recent quote, with portfolio's that will essentially maintain the company at an approximate cash flow break even scenario. To that, they have subsequently added four additional portfolio acquisitions which appear to offer more of the "blue sky" opportunity that could lead to increased settlement amounts, thus really moving the needle. Considering their very low and fixed overhead, any new settlements outside the scope of their currently producing assets would appear to fall straight to the bottom line.
In just the last month alone, they filed 27 new suits on just the newly acquired portfolio owned by Vantage Point. Also last quarter, assets grew from 55 to 99, pretty impressive.
Croxall and team are building a very large pipeline, filling the funnel so to speak, and those settlements are going to eventually come out the other end in terms of licensing revenues, likely pretty substantial.
I thought the recent "Focussed Trader" explained this well...
Marathon now owns seven patent portfolios and has 51 active lawsuits, (a 55% growth from the 33 lawsuits as of just two months ago), against 57 different defendants, many of which are household names like Microsoft, Samsung, Qualcomm, and Amazon.com. As with patent acquisition activity, investors should keep a keen eye on the number of active patent lawsuits Marathon has ongoing. As that number grows, it likely increases the frequency of future settlements as well as the level of diversification regarding outcomes of its patent campaigns. Once that number is large enough, it should start to result in a smoothing effect on quarterly revenue and EBITDA
AI
