Regular readers of the IP Asset Maximizer Blog will recognize my previous post which provided an illustration of the predictive nature of patent landscaping to improve business decisions using Cox Enterprise’s $300 Million acquisition of Adify as an example. I wanted to follow up on that post because a recent announcement by Yahoo may demonstrate that, at least in some situations, patent landscaping analytics are so good at predicting future competititve activity that they can operate as a business crystal ball.
In that post, I predicted that Cox would likely experience substantial competition in the vertical advertising space as it seeks to capitalize on its purchase of Adify, and supported this assertion by providing a picture of third party commercial intentions by looking at patent filing data. This prediction was bolstered by recent a Google announcement that it was partnering with NBC-Universal to deliver targeted ads through cable. This was not surprising looking at the patent filing data that signaled significant investment by Google in the vertical advertising market. Moreover, I argued that Google’s activity should be a concern for Cox because a significant strategic purpose of Cox’s purchase of Adify is certainly to generate significant revenue in targeted advertisements to be delivered over Cox’s cable networks.