BOSTON – (June 11, 2024) – Access Advance (“Advance”), together with boutique investment bank Tech+IP (www.techip.cc), today announced an agreement to explore an initiative connecting patent owners and implementers in the IoT market that comprises smart home devices and services.

The global smart home market is expected to reach US$120B in 2024 and grow at a 25% CAGR, reaching $370B in 2029.  It encompasses a number of connectivity, provisioning, security, and other technologies, many of which are the subject of standards development processes (e.g., Matter, Thread, Zigbee, and others) and technologies that have become de-facto standards, developed and deployed in a host of enterprise and consumer settings.

Advance and Tech+IP believe there is a market need for a transparent and balanced program to provide licensing efficiency to this important segment of the global IoT market.   Based on Advance’s success in bringing over 60 Licensors and 340 Licensees into its HEVC Advance and VVC Advance Patent Pools, the  companies plan to engage both patent owners and potential implementers to fully explore the opportunity and will only launch if confident that a balanced solution that solves a market need can be provided.

Advance and Tech+IP invite patent owners with standard essential and/or implementation patents relevant to important smart home technologies and devices, as well as patent implementers utilizing such technologies in devices and services, to engage in exploratory discussions. Interested participants should send an e-mail to Paul Bawel, SVP of Business Development for Access Advance, at paul.bawel@accessadvance.com or Matthias Ulrich, Business Development Tech+IP at matthias@techip.cc.

About Access Advance:

Access Advance LLC is an independent licensing administrator company formed to lead the development, administration, and management of patent pools for licensing essential patents of the most important standards-based video codec technologies. Access Advance provides a transparent and efficient licensing mechanism for both patent owners and patent implementers.

Access Advance currently manages and administers the HEVC Advance Patent Pool for licensing over 23,000 patents essential to H.265/HEVC technology, and the separate and independent VVC Advance Patent Pool for licensing essential patents to VVC/H.266 technology. The HEVC Advance Patent Pool and the VVC Advance Patent Pool are elements of the Access Advance Video Codec Platform Initiative that seamlessly incorporates HEVC and VVC technologies into a single discounted royalty rate structure through the Multi-Codec Bridging Agreement for eligible Licensees whose products include both HEVC and VVC codecs. This innovation responds to the market’s desire for an even more efficient next-generation pool licensing structure. For more information, please visit www.accessadvance.com.

About Tech+IP:

Tech+IP Advisory is a leading boutique investment bank advisory (www.techip.cc) Founded by Elvir Causevic and Ed Fish, Tech+IP is focused on advanced technologies and patents. Before Tech+IP, Causevic and Fish co-headed the global Tech+IP practice at leading investment bank, Houlihan Lokey (NYSE: HLI).