First intellectual property rights auction in Europe will be held in Munich
Published May 13th, 2007
At a hotel in Munich this week, Webasto, a German auto parts maker, plans to do something nearly unthinkable: license the rights to one of its best-selling products – a roof-top solar panel for cars and trucks – to the highest bidder at a public auction.
For a decade, Webasto, based in the Munich suburb of Stockdorf, has spent millions negotiating the sale of licenses for its vehicle solar panels to automakers like Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Opel, Volkswagen and Audi. But it is set to sell on Tuesday nonexclusive rights at the first intellectual property, or IP, auction in Europe. Organizers of the auction hope it will open a new sales channel to speed the transfer of intellectual property in a cheaper, more transparent marketplace.
“The knowledge society is becoming more and more important,” said Manfred Petri, of IP Auctions, the Hamburg company that is organizing the event and that is owned by a group of European patent lawyers, IP assessors and private investors. “The values being created by intellectual property are becoming too large to trade in a clandestine market.”
Global sales of IP surged with the rise of the digital economy, with annual transactions rising from just $10 billion in 1990 to $200 billion this year, according to Petri.
The auction next Tuesday has attracted the interest of 84 sellers who are trading licenses and patents for technologies ranging from industrial coating machinery to treatments for psoriasis and skin cancer.
