Context:
- Last year, Erich Spangenberg’s Sauvegarder Investment Management (SIM) IP made a series of acquisitions, including buying a video patent portfolio from Finland’s Gurulogic Microsystems Oy (May 13, 2025 SIM IP press release), a portfolio of cloud computing, virtual networking and internet protocol address management patents from FusionLayer, Inc. (April 22, 2025 ip fray article), a haptics and extended reality (XR) patent portfolio worth hundreds of millions of dollars from Ultraleap (February 5, 2025 ip fray article), and Australian data exchange platform Qord IP’s patent portfolio, which included dozens of IoT assets (October 21, 2025 ip fray article).
- It started 2026 off with another major deal with Tangibly, an AI-powered platform that provides trade secret management services, with the two launching a trade secret litigation financing partnership (January 15, 2026 ip fray article). And, last week, it began enforcing its newly-acquired FusionLayer patents. Its subsidiary Nixu FL IP Protection LLC filed a patent infringement lawsuit over EP2005696 (“Applianced domain name server”) against two Infoblox entities and its German reseller Nomios in the UPC’s Hamburg Local Division (LD), seeking an injunction with respect to Finland (the country in which the inventors are based), Germany, France, and (under BSH long-arm jurisdiction) the UK (February 1, 2025 ip fray article).
What’s new: SIM IP has inked another new agreement, merging with patent intelligence platform Garden Intel in a deal worth over $150 million (February 5, 2025 SIM IP press release).
Direct impact and wider ramifications: The businesses will operate together under the SIM IP brand, and, as the company prepares to go public – they note that there is an opportunity for nine-figure revenue growth. SIM IP noted in its press release yesterday that while patents collectively represent hundreds of billions in latent value, fewer than 2% of issued patents generate any financial return. “This deal creates the first platform capable of solving this liquidity crisisat scale,” it said.
In a statement yesterday, Mr. Spangenberg said:
“Current market inefficiency is massive, and the opportunity to correct it is generational. SIM IP brings immense market access and proven transaction success, while Garden brings the unique analytical precision that makes those transactions faster, cheaper, and smarter.”
He added that the merger will change the IP asset class, striving to become the leader in unlocking value in IP investments:
“Together, we are building an infrastructure that will define how innovation is valued andmonetized for decades to come.”
Also in a statement yesterday, Garden’s Chief Executive Officer Adi Sidapara stated:
“We are building the only platform in the market where the asset class becomes more intelligent with scale, and among all our customers, SIM IP clearly stood out as the ideal entity to merge Garden with.”
He added:
“Greater data attracts more assets, which yields better data, and most importantly, rewards those who innovate with enhanced and faster economic returns. We are building a defensive moat around the financialization of innovation that manual operators cannot penetrate.”
Transaction details
The companies plan to create a “Self-Reinforcing Flywheel” that legacy firms cannot replicate. They note that traditional patent monetization relies on static legal analysis, but Garden’s infrastructure fuses patent data with real-world commercial signals across science and technology.
They also added that this merger means moving “beyond traditional litigation finance and patent monetization” – together they are creating a whole new sector: “Asset-Based AI”. SIM IP believes that this could position it to unlock a potential trillion-dollar asset class.