Statistical Correlation Between Patent Ownership and Success

The more patents you own – and the better they are – the better your chances of success.

France Brevets, a French sovereign investment fund, has published a report (in English) that correlates success of venture-backed startups with the patents held by the startup.

As you would think the chances of success by the company increases when the company has a patent, but I was astounded to learn that biotech or software companies have almost a three times greater chance of success when there is at least one patent.

The chances of success increase even more dramatically when there are international patents (what they term “Tridactic”) and when the patent quality and quantity are high.

BlueIron was designed to address this very need. Because we finance the patents, we are able to give a company many more patents than they could otherwise afford. Also, because we treat startup patents as collateral, we spend an inordinate amount of due diligence to make sure the patents are actually valuable.