Intellectual Ventures Acquires Transmeta Patent Portfolio

Today, Intellectual Venture Funding LLC, an affiliate of Intellectual Ventures, completed the acquisition of the patent portfolio formerly developed and owned by Transmeta Corporation. This transaction follows the acquisition of formerly publicly traded Transmeta by privately held Novafora, Inc.

With this transaction, Intellectual Venture Funding LLC acquired more than 140 U.S. patents and a substantial number of pending patent applications. The transaction also includes patents and patent applications in countries beyond the United States.

With the completion of these two transactions, the technology developed by Transmeta for more than a decade will be used further through two distinct routes:

1. Novafora’s improving its own proprietary designs by using some of the technologies invented by Transmeta, and
2. Intellectual Ventures providing other companies with access to Transmeta’s former patent rights under non-exclusive licensing terms.

"This transaction demonstrates how Intellectual Ventures’ unique business model can enhance the creation, dissemination, and use of technological inventions. When technologies from multiple sources are combined, or when patent rights from many inventors are combined, the original inventions can now find a home in new applications and in new companies," said Vincent Pluvinage, PhD, who leads strategic intellectual property acquisitions and private equity partnerships at Intellectual Ventures.

This portfolio contains relatively young patents; many were issued in the last few years. Transmeta licensed these patents to several of the largest microprocessor companies to generate revenue of approximately $300 million. The company was a pioneer in low-power microprocessor technology, "code morphing" techniques, and very long instruction word design architecture.

"The acquisition of the Transmeta semiconductor patents augments one of the most comprehensive patent portfolios in the semiconductor field, which now includes more than 2,000 patents. This benefits our current and potential licensees by providing more access to innovation and greater opportunity for commercial success,” said Paul Reidy, vice president of semiconductor licensing at Intellectual Ventures. “These additions cover inventions in high-performance, low-power, and embedded processors. Some of the recently issued patents detail some of the most interesting breakthroughs in microprocessor architecture we’ve seen in the last decade or so.”

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