Program aims to level the IP playing field

According to the company, while small companies may have good technology, they lack the 'muscle' to compete with larger organisations in a market that tends to reward larger companies, rather than smaller ones. "IPextreme was founded around the principle of expanding the IP market by enabling semiconductor companies to monetise their high value IP assets," said Warren Savage, IPextreme's president and ceo, pictured. "We see Constellations' 'crowdsourcing' approach as an additional way that we can bring value to the semiconductor market by enabling independent IP companies to have the value of their products made visible to more customers at minimum expense." Constellations is designed to provide the business level infrastructure that will allow an open community of independent semiconductor IP companies to collaborate at the sales level by sharing sales intelligence, thereby creating a virtual worldwide sales footprint. Members of the program can submit known opportunities for IP they don't carry to the Constellations database, where they are routed to the sales team of relevant member companies. When a sale is registered by a member, a royalty is paid back into the program and shared with the submitting member. Initial members of Constellations include CAST, NXP, Sidense and Tiempo.