Does a patent for a technology that failed in the marketplace still have value?
It is important to understand that technology and patents are two very different things. Technology is an advance that enables a better, faster, cheaper way of doing something. A patent is a government granted monopoly for an invention. Therefore, the correlation between the value of a technological advancement and the patents that are derived from that advancement many times will be low. Most technology patents have some value and while some technology patents are relevant today and accordingly quite valuable, companies are willing to acquire patents in which the underlying technology has not yet been adopted as part of an overall strategy to diversify their patent portfolios.
