But a provocative new complaint by a one-man patent holding company called SITI-Sites asserts that Allied Security Trust is the hub of an antitrust conspiracy to drive down the cost of buying or licensing tech patents. (The complaint also names Verizon, Cisco, and Ericsson as defendants.) “Defendants have dried up most of SITI’s patent licensing business in the past three years through the use of sham transactions, recently disclosed price-fixing on patent licensing and purchases, with systematic market manipulation downward, and deceptive patent buying practices,” the Manhattan federal district court complaint asserts. SITI claims that its licensing activity has dropped 84 percent since March 2007, when it alleges Allied began its activities.
On Tuesday we talked with Lawrence Powers, the New Jersey lawyer-turned-entrepreneur who is the sole owner of SITI-Sites. He told us that he shares an interest in about 18 U.S. and foreign patents covering wireless spectrum technology with a patent holding company called MLR LLC. (Powers acquired the interest after suing MLR, which had bought the patents from him before he realized their value. But that’s another story.) MLR has actively prosecuted the patents, which, according to Powers, are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Before June 2008, MLR and Powers’s company had licensing deals with 38 companies. After that, they signed deals with only seven licensors, and they made no new deals in an 11-months stretch ending in March 2010.
