Press release: RWS Holdings plc (“RWS), the world’s leading provider of intellectual property (“IP”) support services (patent translations, international patent filing solutions and searches) and a leading provider of life sciences and commercial language services, today announces the acquisition of Article One Partners, LLC (“AOP”), a cutting-edge IP information business based in the United States, for a cash consideration of US$8 million (“the Acquisition”).
AOP’s online crowdsourcing platform links its clients to a community of over 42,000 researchers, across more than 170 countries, to provide them with access to IP intelligence that informs their litigation, licensing, patent enforcement and IP acquisition strategy decisions. The platform is able to match AOP’s clients’ requirements with researchers in the right technical field and geography. AOP has a track record of delivering critical litigation citations to its strong client base, which includes blue chip corporations such as Philips.
The acquisition will be highly complementary to RWS’s existing Patent Information business and PatBase offering, whilst reinforcing the Group’s focus on providing innovative technology solutions to its clients. In particular the acquisition will strengthen the US presence of RWS’s Patent Information division while expanding cross-selling opportunities across the existing client base. In addition, the support of RWS’s IP sales team in the US, Europe and Asia will bring AOP’s services to a wider market.
AOP achieved revenues of US$3.7 million for the year ended 31 December 2016 and is expected to be earnings neutral in RWS’s 2018 financial year, as the benefits from RWS’s sales team and back office synergies are realised.
Andrew Brode, Chairman of RWS, commented:
“The acquisition of AOP is a natural fit to accelerate the development of our growing Patent Information division and will provide clients with a complementary, online resource to aid their intellectual property research needs.
“We see a number of opportunities for the business to benefit from RWS’s scale and global presence, particularly given our established sales team’s ability to offer clients the fuller range of intellectual property services across multiple geographies, so we are excited about the potential for this additional service going forward.”
About RWS
RWS is the world’s leading provider of patent translations and one of the leading players in the provision of intellectual property support services and a market leader in life sciences translations and linguistic validation as well as a high level specialist language service provider in other technical areas, providing for the diverse needs of a blue-chip multinational client base from Europe, North America and Asia. RWS is based in the UK, with offices in Europe, the USA (New York, Hartford, Broomfield, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago), China, Japan and Australia, and is listed on AIM, the London Stock Exchange regulated market (RWS.L).