LexisNexis® Intellectual Property Solutions, part of RELX, has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Aistemos Limited, a patent classification company, which trades under the Cipher brand.

Cipher uses artificial intelligence and supervised machine learning to classify patents, helping customers uncover insights into complex landscapes of patented technologies to support their strategic IP decisions. Cipher’s classifiers are built from proprietary machine learning algorithms that map patents to technologies using custom and industry standard taxonomies.

“The combination of Cipher and LexisNexis will significantly enhance IP analytics,” says Andrew Matuch, President of LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions. “Marrying the bespoke Cipher classifiers with our PatentSight analytics platform will allow our customers to view the world through their own technology lens, ultimately giving them a competitive advantage.”

After the acquisition, Cipher will become part of LexisNexis® PatentSight®, the LexisNexis flagship IP analytics solution. With the addition of the Cipher classification capabilities, PatentSight customers will not only be able to build custom technology taxonomies based on how they view the world but also make those custom classifiers available across their entire IP department, providing a consistent understanding of the world’s technologies.

“I’m delighted by the idea of joining the LexisNexis team on this journey to shape IP intelligence,” said Nigel Swycher, CEO and one of the original Cipher founders. “This partnership will unlock potential, accelerating our goal to unleash the strategic value of patents for our customers and bringing Cipher to the global innovation community.”

The addition of Cipher represents a further extension of LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions’ vision to bring clarity to innovation and help companies globally bring important innovations into the world.

The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2023. Financial details are not disclosed.

To learn more about LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions, please visit lexisnexisip.com.

About LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions

LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions brings clarity to innovation for businesses worldwide. We enable innovators to accomplish more by helping them make informed decisions, be more productive, comply with regulations and ultimately achieve a competitive advantage for their business. Our suite of workflow and analytics solutions (LexisNexis® IP DataDirect, LexisNexis® IPlytics, LexisNexis PatentAdvisor®, LexisNexis PatentOptimizer®, LexisNexis® PatentSight® and LexisNexis TotalPatent One®) enables companies to be more efficient and effective at bringing meaningful innovations to our world. We are proud to directly support and serve these innovators in their endeavors to better humankind.

About LexisNexis Legal & Professional

LexisNexis Legal & Professional is a leading global provider of legal, regulatory and business information and analytics that helps customers increase productivity, improve decision-making and outcomes, and advance the rule of law around the world. As a digital pioneer, the company was the first to bring legal and business information online with its Lexis® and Nexis® services. LexisNexis Legal & Professional, which serves customers in more than 150 countries with 10,500 employees worldwide, is part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers.

About RELX

RELX is a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. The Group serves customers in more than 180 countries and has offices in about 40 countries. It employs over 30,000 people, of whom almost half are in North America. The shares of RELX PLC, the parent company, are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RELX. The market capitalization is approximately £46.7bn, €52.3bn, $56bn.

About Aistemos Limited and Cipher

Aistemos Limited is a UK limited company founded in 2013 and trades under the Cipher brand. Cipher is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) analytics platform which uses machine learning to automate the classification of patented technologies into custom or industry standard taxonomies. This classification supports IP teams in their strategic patent decisions and helps them communicate the risk and associated value of patents. With Cipher you can optimise your patent portfolio, gather competitor intelligence, manage your budget, conduct due diligence and benchmark your portfolio.

LexisNexis Legal & Professional, part of RELX, has acquired IPlytics, a leading IP intelligence company that enables the analysis of technology landscapes and competition for industries where standards and patents matter by providing access to multiple databases connecting patents, Standard Essential Patents (SEPs), standards, and technical standards contributions. The acquisition extends the vision of LexisNexis Intellectual Property Solutions to bring clarity to innovation and help companies worldwide to be more effective at bringing meaningful innovations into the world.

IPlytics has developed software providing analysis into the past, present, and future of standards-essential technology with fast, intuitive access to SEPs, standards contributions, and standards documents. The IPlytics Platform enables users to align SEP patent portfolio strategy and continuous portfolio development as it relates to SEP assets, to understand the SEP competitive landscape, and to support initiatives such as licensing, acquisitions, due diligence, and analysis of whether to join patent pools. The Berlin-founded company has also developed algorithms to predict the essentiality of patent claims and standards sections and a patent portfolio’s value for standardized technologies.

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