A Bull Market in Tech Patents

Google was willing to pay $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility in no small part because of its stockpile of 17,000 patents. The patent portfolio, some analysts estimate, could represent more than half of the value of the deal, or more than $400,000 a patent. If so, it was a relative bargain.

In June, Apple and Microsoft teamed up with four other companies to pay $4.5 billion for the 6,000 patents held by the bankrupt Canadian telecommunications maker Nortel Networks. That works out to $750,000 a patent or nearly four times the average price for computer, software and telecommunications patents over the last few years, patent experts say. In a stumbling economy, stocks languish in a skittish funk and real estate remains depressed. But technology patents look downright bubbly. This patent gold rush has a darker side. It is diverting money for innovation from industries crucial to the economic future of the United States, analysts say. Patents were created as an incentive for innovation, giving inventors a temporary right to commercialize their ideas, without others copying them. While the recent blockbuster patent deals may make sense for the companies, analysts say, they are fed largely by legal considerations — asserting patent claims or defending against claims — rather than economic ones.