Last week the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) posted a notice asking for public comments on its proposed study of patent assertion entities.

The proposed study will “examine how PAEs do business and develop a better understanding of how they impact innovation and competition”.  You can check out the details of the notice on Patent Assessment Entities here.

Conversant welcomes the Commission’s study of the patent licensing business.  Much of the “information” that gets media attention is anecdotal, perhaps apocryphal, and from biased sources.  But there isn’t a lot of reliable empirical data about patent licensing.

Conversant expects the FTC studywill provide a truer picture of what’s really going on in our business, much like the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report last month popped a few bubbles regarding US patent litigation.