RightsLine, Inc.
Company Progress to Date
- Two Rounds of financing
- 3 major product releases. Version 4 full .NET implementation due out 4th Qtr 2004
- Sold to Universal Studios, National Geographic, Corbis, Sprint, 4Kids, Marvel and PPL
- Active sales pipeline: 3COM, Bell South, Campbell’s Soup, Cargill, Caterpillar, Discovery Channel, Disney Publishing, DuPont, Eastman Chemicals, Ford Motor Co., General Mills, General Motors, Honeywell, Indianapolis Motors, Intel, Jack Daniels, John Deere, Kellogg’s, Kraft, Masterfoods, NBC, P&G, Qualcomm, Siemens, Smith & Wesson, Smithsonian Institute, Sunbeam, Turner Entertainment, UNC-TV, US Dept. of Education, Winchester, and Yamaha Motor Sports.
- Alliances with IBM, EDS, Accenture and Microsoft
- Demand in 20 key market segments including: media, aerospace & defense, automotive & transport, beverages, chemicals, computer software and pharmaceuticals
- Booked $750K in Q1 2004; Revenue Forecast CY 2004 $2.5MM, CY 2005 $10.5MM
Company Overview
RightsLine is a leading provider of business applications software, enabling companies to increase revenue from existing intellectual property, across all lines of business. In a time when shareholders are pushing management to do more with less, RightsLine provides the first software solution focused on increasing revenue from intellectual property. From automating licensing and sales divisions to streamlining marketing and corporate brand management departments, RightsLine provides a proven set of rights management, licensing and royalty products, empowering our customers to increase revenue while reducing risk and improving efficiencies.
The Company has been the subject of considerable media coverage, including a recent front-page feature story in The Los Angeles Times business section (“Software Helps Tame the Copyright Jungle” by Jon Healey, 8/13/03) and a subsequent editorial piece (“A Promising Marriage”, 8/23/03). RightsLine was previously featured in Forbes magazine (“Paper Jam” by Elisa Williams, 9/2/02) and on the CNN Financial Network.
Market
RightsLine’s patent-pending architecture provides a horizontal solution that is highly configurable for all industries. The Company’s initial sales focus is not toward a specific industry, but rather a business function common across many industries, namely intellectual property licensing. RightsLine sees significant opportunities for its rights management, licensing automation and royalty processing applications in 20 key market segments including media, aerospace & defense, automotive & transport, beverages, chemicals, computer software and pharmaceuticals as both government and commercial organizations see the benefits in dynamically managing their IP and increasing their revenue. The addressable market for RightsLine consists of approximately 5,000 companies globally with annual revenues in excess of $250 million. The “pain” being experienced by target companies is that maximum revenues are not being realized and expenses due to illegal use of intellectual property are very high. In the current economic environment this can be the difference between corporate success and failure.
Unique opportunity
As more companies look to make money from their existing assets, they are looking into the rights that they own to their brands, copyrights, trademarks and patents. RightsLine delivers leading business applications software including intellectual property (IP) rights management, licensing and royalty processing. A more robust system is critical, now that more manufacturing is outsourced and companies must manage the rights to their IP more effectively. Not to be confused with DAM (Digital Asset Management), which stores digital assets, and DRM (Digital Rights Management) which focuses on encryption and watermarking solutions, RightsLine delivers business applications for rights management coupled with powerful licensing automation. RightsLine picks up where ECM (Enterprise Content Management) leaves off, namely managing the rights, licensing and royalties associated with all types of IP. RightsLine solutions add value by allowing businesses to fully leverage their IP to increase revenue and reduce risk.
Companies have typically focused on managing contracts, but not the IP rights that are contained inside the contract. Companies must organize, protect, manufacture, sell, and/or deliver IP, or derivatives thereof, in a more secure, reliable and efficient manner in order to remain competitive. For IP, an intangible “right” of ownership can be transformed into tangible forms (DVD movies, electronics, images, music CDs, pharmaceuticals, software applications and toys, etc.) that are manufactured and sold across industries and geographical boundaries, or licensed online, such as songs or images. With the explosive growth of IP, global rights outlets, and greater rights segmentation, companies on a global basis are struggling to compress business cycles, cut costs, grow revenues, and remain competitive without sacrificing the integrity of their crown jewels Intellectual Property. IP-rich enterprises across different vertical markets with thousands of vendors, customers and partners and tens of thousands of complex contracts in place must ensure that their IP rights are not under-utilized or misused in the process of conducting business. Unfortunately, many companies still rely on antiquated paper filing systems for their IP rights and associated contracts, which are disconnected from their other online business processes, resulting in increased data management costs, increased legal exposure and reduced revenues. The larger the company is, the greater the financial impact from under-utilization or misuse of IP rights.
Historically, traditional offline IP and rights management processes and contracts were sufficient when there were relatively limited rights-use channels, and the pace and cost of business was slow and low enough that a company could afford to spend weeks or even months researching and determining IP, contractual or asset-usage rights, without losing ground to the competition, missing revenue opportunities or significantly increasing costs or legal risks. Today, with businesses and business processes moving at Internet speed, the trends of globalization and localization, and the explosion of new rights outlets and rights segmentation, many companies are forced to either a) slow down in order to “hunt and research” through thousands of IP rights and contracts, b) avoid business opportunities when rights are in question, or c) risk legal action by ignoring the IP and rights issues altogether. None of these are acceptable alternatives.
RightsLine’s patent-pending, web-enabled applications allow enterprises to control the life-cycle of the terms contained in contracts in real-time, from management, negotiation, licensing and reporting of business rights of all types, to the contractual relationships and agreements created with its customers, vendors and partners that market, sell, manufacture or use the IP and/or derivative products. Examples of IP are software products, books, movies, pharmaceuticals and electronics designs. The “rights” to IP include terms and conditions found on agreements, such as ownership, license term, uses and limitations, revenue sharing, right to further extend limited rights to third parties, right to modify the IP or derivatives, and rights to manufacture, market and sell geographically or otherwise. Corporate users and authorized third party users (such as licensees), use RightsLine applications to provide both internal and external functionality.
There are three major products within the suite of RightsLine applications, each with its own specific functional modules:
- The Rights Intelligence System (RIS) is used by the customer to manage rights information and licensing in a centralized and real-time manner. Modules include RIS Library, RIS Acquisitions, RIS Sales, RIS eLicensing and RIS Invoicing;
- The Rights Royalty Manager (RRM), currently in development, provides for the capture of royalty terms and conditions, and the execution of these royalty terms. Modules include RRM Royalty Receipts, RRM Royalty Calculator and RRM Royalty Payments; and
- The Rights Portfolio Analyzer (RPA) provides for the integrated collection of reporting and analytic tools. Modules include RPA Ad Hoc Reporting and RPA Advanced Analytics.
The Company’s business applications software enables businesses to drive traditional and new revenue, compress business cycles, reduce administrative costs and avoid rights misuse.
Contact information
Russell P. Reeder, Chairman and CEO, co-Founder
Tel: (310)281-6434
rreeder@rightsline.com
Gregory D. Helland, President
ghelland@rightsline.com
Ramond M. Haynes, Executive Vice President and CTO, co-Founder
rhaynes@rightsline.com
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