SEP Pricing Strategy

The client was a leading licensor and participant in prominent standards-essential patent pools covering streaming technologies and connected devices. The pools were gaining adoption and providing an established route to market, but prospective licensees were also approaching the client directly to negotiate bilateral access to its portfolio.

Those bilateral discussions created an opportunity to reflect the specific strength and relevance of the client’s portfolio, but the pricing could not be developed in isolation. It needed to remain consistent with the pool framework while accounting for differences in portfolio scope, market coverage, transaction structure, and the value available through a direct license.

The stakes extended beyond any single negotiation. Pricing below the pool could undermine the established program and create an unhelpful precedent for other licensees. Pricing too aggressively, without a transparent rationale, could slow negotiations and leave valuable bilateral opportunities unresolved. The client needed a framework that protected the integrity of the pool while supporting the maximum realistically achievable value in direct engagements.

FIN IP Group developed a bilateral pricing framework grounded in the client’s existing pool participation and the economic structure of the relevant programs. We assessed pool rates, allocation methods, portfolio strength, and alternative pricing approaches, then used statistical analysis to identify the relationships that should govern bilateral pricing across different licensing scenarios.

The resulting framework gave the client a clear and repeatable way to translate pool pricing into bilateral proposals without undercutting the broader program. It also provided the supporting logic needed to explain how each proposal reflected the client’s portfolio, the applicable market, and the structure of the direct license.

The framework was adopted for the client’s bilateral licensing discussions, creating greater consistency across engagements and giving the licensing team a defensible basis for tailoring proposals to individual counterparties. The client subsequently retained FIN IP Group to support additional bilateral engagements as new opportunities emerged.