By Kathryn Chiu ,The China Post
September 12, 2013, 12:12 am TWN

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A rating showed that ASE and SAS last year stood head and shoulders above other Taiwan-listed hi-tech companies regarding the potential market value of their patents in the U.S., according to the findings of a think tank.

The “Intellectual Property Quotient” (IPQ) picked out Taiwan-listed high-tech companies which own at least five proprietary patents in the U.S. The IPQ then assessed these companies’ probability for economic success, according to the Science & Technology Law Institute (STLI,資策會科技法律研究所). Fifty Taiwan-listed companies were reviewed by the IPQ.

Between 2009 and 2012 ASE (日月光半導體), Sino-American Silicon Products Inc. (中美矽晶), and AU Optronics Corp.(友達) took up the top three places on the ranking.

Other Taiwan-listed high-tech companies in the ranking include TSMC, HTC, Microelectronics Technology, Marconix, SPIL, Nanya, Nanya PCB, VIA, Pixart, YAGEO, Epistar, ESMC, Winbond, Phison, Hermes, Mediatek, UMC and Novatek.

The system used by the STLI-sponsored IPQ ranking was designed by Ocean Tomo, a Chicago-based intellectual property merchant bank. Ocean Tomo said it employed a sophisticated statistical methodology to appraise the potential commercial value of U.S.-approved patents owned by candidate companies.

Ocean Tomo pioneered the first stock index based on corporations whose overall market value is in large part due to the value of their patent portfolios. This index is called the “Ocean Tomo 300 Patent Index.” It starts with the 1,000 most liquid securities on U.S. exchanges.

Ocean Tomo also introduced the world’s first public auctions of patents, trademarks and copyrights.