What a year we have just lived through. Now that it’s over and we are all looking forward to what 2017 has in store it’s time for IAM to name its IP personalities of 2016. As regular blog readers will know, we define a “personality” in very broad terms. You don’t have to be a human being or even a single identifiable entity to qualify – basically the term encompasses whatever we want it to encompass; it’s all about who and what caught our eye over the past 12 months….

…Russell Binns – The chief executive of defensive patent aggregator Allied Security Trust (AST) enjoyed a high-profile year thanks to the firm’s management of the Industry Patent Purchase program (IP3). Bringing together a group of major businesses – including the likes of Google, Microsoft, IBM, Ford, Apple, Cisco, Honda and Facebook – IP3 offered patent sellers the opportunity to pitch their wares and to get deals done quickly. It proved to be highly popular, with 434 rights owners submitting 1,378 deals for consideration, and 56 offers with a total value of $5.3 million made. Beginning at the end of May and completed by the end of the summer, IP3 was a ground-breaking expansion of Google’s 2015 Patent Purchase Promotion. The fact that AST ran the show bears testament to Binns’s leadership and the strength of the team he has around him. For many years, AST had been happy to be low-profile while others made the noise and garnered the big headlines; IP3 changed all that. Expect it to be back – in one form or another – later this year.

You will find the full text of Joff Wild’s blog here.