IP and patents
Good inventions should not be lost because nobody pays the next renewal fee.
STI acquires and licenses patents, patent applications, software and know-how with a credible application – including unused portfolios, patents with fees falling due and IP whose owner is dissolved or insolvent.
Renewal or prosecution deadline? Send it first, with the date and the patent office. Our first answer says whether we will look further; an enquiry does not pay a fee or extend a deadline.
What we acquire
Selective IP acquisition
We buy where we can add value: by developing, licensing, combining or industrialising the technology. We do not buy patents in order to threaten anyone.
Non-core corporate portfolios
Patent families that an industrial group no longer needs for its core business but that still have value for a buyer or licensee. We review status, territories and fees, and propose a purchase, a licence or a combination.
Patents and applications
Single patent families or portfolios: European and national patents and applications, and PCT international applications. We record the jurisdiction and current status of each right.
Software and know-how
Code, models, data and documented know-how, preferably with access to the people who created them.
Trademarks and designs
Where they belong with a technology or product line that we take over.
IP at risk
Three situations, one first step: status and ownership
An insolvent or dissolved owner does not make IP ownerless or free to take. A successor, an insolvency estate, a public authority or another party may hold the relevant rights. We identify who can lawfully sell or license before discussing terms.
- Deadline
Maintenance at risk
A renewal fee is falling due or a prosecution deadline is close, and nobody plans to act on it.
Record the jurisdiction, registered holder and exact deadline – then talk to us before it passes.
- Ownership
Owner dissolved or insolvent
The owning company is in insolvency, has been dissolved, or nobody knows who can sign.
We trace the rights holder: estate, successor or other authorised party.
- Unused
Owned but unused
Non-core patents of industrial groups, university families without a licensee, results of ended EU projects.
A negotiated purchase or licence, subject to existing rights and obligations.
Licensing and monetisation
Turning unused IP into income
We design and run licensing strategies that fit the technology and the market – not litigation campaigns.
- Exclusive and non-exclusive licences to industrial users
- Purchase with a licence back to the founders or the original owner, where lawful
- Field-of-use licences for a defined application, with scope, payments and obligations agreed
- Combining complementary patent families into a portfolio a buyer can use
- Sale to an industrial owner when that is best for the technology
For universities and technology transfer offices
Before you stop maintaining a patent family, ask us.
Technology transfer offices regularly decide which patent families to stop paying for. We can take over families you no longer want to maintain – by assignment, option or licence with a share of future income – so the invention keeps a chance of reaching the market.
Annual review. Send us once a year, under a confidentiality agreement, the list of families you intend to drop. We tell you which ones we would consider and on what terms, before the fees fall due.
What we need to look at a patent
- Patent or application numbers and the countries concerned
- Next renewal dates and any fee already missed
- Registered owner and who can sign
- Licences, options, pledges or disputes
- Technical data beyond the patent text, if any
Fees and restoration
A missed fee is not the same as a lost technology.
Late-payment periods and restoration routes differ between patent systems and territories. For European patent applications, EPO Rule 51 allows a renewal fee to be paid within six months after the due date with an additional fee. This is not a universal deadline for all patents.
Restoration, where available, is conditional and subject to strict requirements and time limits. A qualified patent attorney confirms the position for the holder and each jurisdiction.
If a patent right lapses, that does not mean the technology can be used freely: other patents, software rights, know-how, contracts or regulatory requirements may still apply. Third parties who used the invention in good faith while a right had lapsed may also keep certain rights after restoration.
How we act
- Status checkRegister status, deadlines and holder for every country.
- Rights holder confirmedWho can lawfully sell or license, and with which approvals.
- Rights securedFees paid where agreed, transfers recorded, inventor rights and pledges checked.
- Put to workA licensee, a product in our group, a new company, or a stronger combined portfolio.
Invented in Central Europe
A region of inventors – and of patents.
These patents were filed by inventors who were born or worked in today's Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Several of these technologies – the transformer, the Kaplan turbine, the parachute – came into wide use. The same care for rights is what keeps a technology alive today.
