ICAP the world's biggest interdealer broker bought the transactions division of patent brokerage Ocean Tomo for $10 million in cash and shares.Indeed, there is a lot of synergy between the two but on the long term horizon IMHO it would’ve been great to see Thomson Reuters buying Ocean Tomo than ICAP. No doubt ICAP has a lot of synergy in the brokerage domain but it takes more to deal with the patent brokerage. Had the buyer been Thomson Reuters then the value addition is just manifold. A combination of a patent database provider, patent brokerage firm and a media biggie Reuters would be deadly for this IP Business as a whole. However, I don’t discount the importance of the company financials that these M&A deals are clout with.
The patent brokerage business is tiny at the moment, and wouldn't interest the behemoth that ThomsonReuters is now.
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