NEW YORK, NY — (Marketwired) — 03/12/15 — Article One Partners (AOP), the world–s largest patent research community, today revealed the details that have defined its strong momentum to date. With the completion of a successful merger with ipCreate, the expansion of product offerings tailored to clients– specific needs, and a vibrant and growing research community, AOP is well-positioned for success in 2015 and beyond.

As patent litigation shows signs of abating and talk of patent trolls slowly gives way to discussions of patent quality, AOP is taking full advantage of the changing industry trends. Now in its seventh year providing unique IP research and intelligence, AOP has capitalized on its own success and the expanding needs of clients by developing a full suite of prior art and market research products that leverage its crowd of global researchers.

“Article One been listening to and working with our clients directly to develop offerings that help them not only defend themselves, but also help them monetize and innovate to create value,” said Peter Vanderheyden, President of Article One Partners. “With fewer resources being required for defense our clients are taking the opportunity to focus on patent quality and revenue, two areas where we can help them excel!” By providing a variety of offerings ranging from CrowdSearch to AlphaSearch Studies for prior art research to a Patent Intelligence Report and AOP Surveys to gather market intelligence, AOP takes an unprecedented approach to addressing all of its clients– IP industry needs.

In early January, ipCreate, the world–s premier Invention on Demand® company, completed its acquisition of AOP. Following the merger, AOP continues to maintain its own brand and business operations while operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of ipCreate. Fundamental to its value proposition and as a key differentiator, ipCreate will focus uniquely on promoting patent quality. To ensure this quality, the company will rely exclusively on AOP– IP research resources, from the crowd to experts within the crowd.

“ipCreate is completely dedicated to establishing a white hat brand for game changing innovation, a brand that can only exist if we deliver the highest quality of truly innovative patents,” said John Cronin, CEO and Executive Chairman of ipCreate. “AOP will help us achieve that quality.”

“The new relationship between ipCreate and AOP recognizes that patents for the sake of patents is not a game that high-integrity players want to play,” said Marshall Phelps, chairman of ipCreate and former CEO of AOP. “Rather, quality must be central to the creation of key innovations, and will enable those innovations to reliably change the way we live.”

With more than 2,600 studies launched to date, AOP has a strong record of conducting research in a variety of areas through the lens of six different IP research products. “We now have the opportunity to bring our value proposition to drive quality and develop insight into all strategic IP areas, including defensive, monetization and innovation strategies,” said Vanderheyden. Adding to their world-class focus on large-scale, mission-critical prior art research, AOP now offers products tailored to their clients– specific needs, including monetization, defense and innovation with products across the full budget spectrum. Because AOP–s clients range from large Fortune 100 companies to small technology startups, product flexibility and adaptability are critical. With full crowd studies and smaller, more private assessments, AOP has adapted its product suite to suit a variety of IP intelligence needs that help clients make the best IP-related business decisions.

Over the past year, use of AOP prior art research studies continued to increase. But the real game-changer was the addition of ExpertSearch, a budget-friendly, short-term study that employs a pair of highly skilled researchers from the crowd to focus on a specific technology area. Sales of ExpertSearch studies increased by over 180 percent in 2014. With the introduction of Mapping Studies and AOP Surveys, AOP further expanded its product suite to assist clients in new areas of IP intelligence, including trademarks and standards.

The combination of these three assets — the crowd, experts, and internal researchers — results in different ways to deliver research to meet the budget demands and scope that clients require, from patentability to invalidity and all matters in between.

AOP–s crowd of more than 32,000 researchers is highly skilled at understanding a client–s needs as outlined in a study request, and adapting their research approach to best suit the search at hand. Researchers hail from more than 170 countries and speak a number of languages.

Since launching in 2008, the company has distributed over $6 million in rewards to the research community for their work. “In my relatively short time on the site, not only have I been very fortunate in my successes, so have so many others,” said Christopher Brothers, the researcher who won the Study that subsequently pushed AOP over the $6 million reward mark. A third-year law student, Brothers said, “AOP–s platform gives so many people, myself included, access to opportunities — both experience- and reward-related — that they would not otherwise have.”

The research community has been a critical part of AOP–s success over the past years and has helped to make a significant impact on patent quality across the industry. “The strength of the global crowd combined with the experience of the AOP team continues to drive high-quality, unique intelligence for clients– important IP business decisions,” said Phelps. “Patent quality is now moving back to the forefront of the IP industry, as it should be, making the work AOP does more important now than ever before.”

Since its founding in 2008, has become the world–s largest intellectual property (IP) research community. By leveraging a growing crowd of over 30,000 researchers, AOP has revolutionized the transparency of IP-related data. Through crowdsourcing and other techniques, AOP provides clients with access to insightful information to help them make the best possible IP related business decisions whether they are innovating, defending or monetizing their IP portfolios. The company has paid their research community more than $6M for their skilled work at identifying patents, non-patent literature and non-textual content to inform IP decisions. AOP helps 15 Fortune 100 companies and eight of the top ten US patent filers to improve their patent quality and strategic management of their IP across the IP lifecycle.

Brigit Valencia and Adriana Jimenez
BOCA Communications
415.738.7718

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