Patent Sale Shrouded In MysteryPatent Sale Shrouded In Mystery

Very little is known about JGR Acquisition, the company that earlier this week walked away with 39 patents during the bankruptcy proceedings for Commerce One Inc., a once high-flying E-commerce software vendor. Yet many suspect this won't be the last the technology industry hears from a company that plunked down $15.5 million for the patents, beating out two other serious bidders in a spirited auction.

The patents, some of which haven't yet been issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, appear to cover some Web-services technologies. Among them was a recently issued patent that covers methods for interpreting documents in an E-commerce system; a patent for adapting trade specifications to find E-commerce partners that offer the best terms; and a third for using XML to enable code-free data integration between disparate data-processing systems.

Last month, a group of technology vendors met to discuss pooling resources to purchase and retire the patents when they came up for auction, out of concerns that they would end up with a litigious person or group that alleges they're being used elsewhere. But there wasn't enough time to organize the funds, says Craig Smith, CFO and chief operating officer of CommerceNet, a nonprofit research firm that organized the meeting, and an effort to delay the patent auction was denied. Smith would not reveal the names of the other companies involved in the effort.

CommerceNet's technical staff reviewed the patents and determined that they were enforceable, Smith says. No one is sure of JGR Acquisition's motives; Smith says the company appears to be newly formed and the name intentionally inconspicuous. "You can't say the name without forgetting it," Smith says. Mark Mullin, a partner with law firm Haynes and Boone LLP, who represented JGR Acquisition at the auction, did not return calls seeking comment.

Commerce One attorney Mark Prim wouldn't speculate on the potential value of the patents. "They were selling them as is," Prim says. "The buyers can figure for themselves whether they're enforceable."