Thank you! ip fray‘s LinkedIn page now has more than 10,000 followers:
For a patent-focused website that is just over two years old (December 23, 2023 was its launch day), that is unprecedented. Let’s compare this to three other media outlets that are either almost exclusively (like ip fray) or at least predominantly patent-focused: one started 20 years before ip fray as a print publication and has 16,500+ followers; the others launched on the web in 1999 (13K+ followers) and 2018 (i.e., five years prior to ip fray, and now 14K+ followers). So all four of us now have more than 10K followers each (but each substantially below 20K).
Ever since LinkedIn provided ip fray with this benchmarking, our page has been adding more followers than the other three. Here are the stats for the last 30 days, with the logos of the other websites removed and names shortened:
In terms of relative growth (new followers divided by base), the difference is even greater: ip fray +3.2% over the last 30 days vs. +1.5%, +1.0%, and +0.8%.
ip fray generated a lot more LinkedIn engagements over the last 30 days (in fact, more than the other three combined, and almost twice as many as the second-placed page):
One factor here is that when other LinkedIn pages are much older, they have more inactive (or no longer interested) accounts among their follower counts than a younger one.
Search & AI: ip fray is the patent-focused website designed for the AI era
In January, ip fray got almost half a million Google web impressions, with clicks spread out over almost 700 different pages:
Our previous Google record was just over 350K. AI chatbots actually “cannibalize” search traffic, and most media outlets are impacted badly. But ip fray got stronger on Google, against the tide.
As for AI: ip fray, which was launched simultaneously with ai fray (which has 28K LinkedIn followers, but AI litigation and regulation is of broader appeal) and games fray, was designed for the AI era in every respect. That includes Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), the AI equivalent of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We write for human readers, but many of those readers use AI tools, so our content and data structures are optimized for that use case. And every time we decide whether (or to what extent) to paywall an article, AI considerations come into play. Depending on the specific content, we may want AI bots to ingest it, or we may pursue the opposite objective and strategically withhold content so as not to dilute the value of our premium subscription offering.
Quality and quantity
Many of the powers that be read ip fray. Judges from the U.S. and Europe inquired about subscriptions, with one of them even explicitly offering to pay out of his own pocket (not necessary: we are honored to extend complimentary accounts to judicial, regulatory and policy-making bodies).
ip fray‘s coverage has repeatedly given rise to court orders (February 6, 2026 ip fray article on InterDigital v. Amazon) and been quoted in court filings. A week ago we noticed mentions of ip fray in an official European Commission document (February 1, 2026 ip fray article).
We work hard to maintain a high standard as we have to earn the trust of the most discerning readers again and again. A tremendous reinforcement of our team (with experience in, inter alia, standards development work) is just awaiting an administrative formality to get started.
Quantity and speed are, however, not antithetical to quality. It’s about striking the right balance, and that balance depends on what happens. For example, this week had 16 SEP stories (LinkedIn post with complete list). There was so much relevant stuff going on that we had to go the extra mile.
Some articles require a lot of research. We spent several days spread out over the course of many weeks to find out about Avanci’s progress in China, and were first to learn that at least one unnamed Chinese automaker had taken a license (February 24, 2025 ip fray article).
When famous soccer coach Carlo Ancelotti was asked about quality versus quantity with respect to food, his answer was “quality and quantity”. That’s our editorial approach.
Focus
UPC and SEPs are two key areas. We increasingly cover pharma and life sciences. We look at key U.S. lawsuits and regularly write about such jurisdictions as Brazil. We connect the dots across jurisdictions.
Litigation is central because the only way you can generate “demand” when someone intends to infringe (or take their chances) is to sue. We look at litigation from a business point of view. It’s about the impact of the law on business (ip fray‘s founder has negotiated IP license agreements, has given strategic advice to licensors as well as licensees such as a premium automaker, and arranged litigation finance in the middle eight figures). We also talk about general IP strategies (e.g., TSMC’s patent filing strategy: February 6, 2026 ip fray article) and explained that Broadcom is the world’s first trillion-dollar “patent troll” (February 7, 2026 ip fray article).
Geographic reach
LinkedIn doesn’t provide by-country stats, but these are our top 25 metropolitan regions, grouped by region:
- United States: San Francisco Bay Area, Washington DC-Baltimore Area, New York City Metropolitan Area, Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Greater Chicago Area, Greater Boston
- South America: Greater Rio de Janeiro, Bogotá D.C. Metropolitan Area
- Asia: Greater Delhi Area, Greater Bengaluru Area, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Greater Hyderabad Area, Beijing, Noida
- We actually have a lot of readers in China, but LinkedIn isn’t used there much. Our coverage frequently gets picked up by Chinese IP websites and blogs, and we sometimes publish topics on the web that could also be explained in a LinkedIn post only to maximize accessibility from China.
- Europe: Greater Munich Metropolitan Area, London Area, Greater Paris Metropolitan Region, Greater Dusseldorf Area, The Randstad (Amsterdam-The Hague), Brussels Metropolitan Area, Brussels Metropolitan Area, Greater Stockholm Metropolitan Area, Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Greater Hamburg Area
Protecting sources
Unless someone publicly (such as on LinkedIn) alerts us to something or explicitly asks or authorizes to be named, we protect our sources. We have great sources, and we encourage everyone else who has information on litigation, license deals, or other key developments in IP: reach out to us (such as via LinkedIn, though we then prefer to switch to email). If the information you have is relevant, we will make sure it gets the attention it deserves. If what you have is a major scoop and you want it to be published outside our paywall, we’re willing to discuss.
Freemium model
The fact that we reached a new Google high despite the impact of AI and the introduction of our freemium (free + premium) model means a lot.
You can subscribe to our email summaries for free. Our LinkedIn posts are, obviously, free. A substantial percentage of our web content is free, and even paywalled articles aren’t always entirely paywalled: the summary or parts thereof, and sometimes even more than the summary, may be available for free.
Freemium is the sweet spot. If something is 100% free, it can be great, but it could also be that it’s too thin to have much of a subscription opportunity. But if something is 100% paywalled, its influence and the engagement it generates will be limited.
Our freemium model includes the law firm achievement lists (UPC and SEPs). Instead of opaque ranking processes or highly subjective opinions, we focus on who has solved what kind of problem. In order for law firms to be listed there, they need premium access.
Our subscriber base among law firms and corporate IP departments keeps growing, and we’re not doing cold calls or hard-selling. Anyone who has interacted with us can confirm that we don’t reach out with sales pitches and that the intervals between our reminders are long. It’s our job to create compelling content. We don’t want to annoy anyone with the paywall, but it is essential to our model, and payments from a wide range of readers are key to our independence.
We invite you all to our platform. And thank you once again for all the support you have given us already, such as on LinkedIn.