Liana Banyan Patent Economics: Fair Upside, No Feudalism
Liana Banyan treats its patent portfolio like an aircraft carrier: shared infrastructure that lets thousands of businesses take off, not a private moat for one owner. The economics are designed so the cooperative and its workers stay in control, external sponsors are rewarded well for real risk, and nobody can extract rent forever.
Who Owns What
For the patent portfolio we’ve already built (1,200+ documented innovations over 23 years):
| Allocation | Recipient | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 60% | The Platform | Cooperative owns the majority |
| 20% | The Founder | Same share any creator can choose |
| 20% | External Pool | Sponsors and patent funders |
That 20% “external” slice is split in half:
- 10% goes to a Global Sponsor Pool: a diversified share of every existing patent.
- 10% goes to Patent Buckets: dynamically rebalanced groups of patents you can fund more directly.
When any existing-portfolio patent is licensed, 60/20 goes to Platform and Founder, 10% flows to the Global Sponsor Pool, and 10% to the Patent Bucket that patent sits in.
Two Ways to Participate
| Method | What You Get |
|---|---|
| Global Sponsor units | Tiny slice of everything in the existing portfolio |
| Patent Bucket stakes | Larger slice of a curated group of patents |
If you hold both, you get both checks.
Caps and Recycling
Every external capital stake, in either pool, has a hard ceiling: it can earn up to $10 million in cumulative payouts. After that, it stops earning and its slot is reopened at current fair value so new participants can step in.
Stakes that have become very valuable can be split into smaller pieces so ticket sizes remain accessible.
Patent Buckets Rebalance for Fairness
Patents don’t all move at the same speed. To avoid punishing people who backed “slow” patents, we regroup patents into Patent Buckets at regular snapshots, based on actual performance. The number and composition of buckets can change, aiming to keep per-stake outcomes across buckets in the same ballpark.
Future Patents: Same Choices as Everyone Else
This model applies to the existing portfolio. New patents use the same Three-Tier IP Control Framework that any creator on Liana Banyan gets:
| Tier | Creator % | LB % | Control Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 49% | 51% | Ethical guardrails only |
| B | 60% | 40% | Up to 5 prohibited categories |
| C | 75% | 25% | Case-by-case approval |
The Founder’s new IP is treated just like everyone else’s: same control vs. payoff trade-offs, with one constraint — if it’s derivative of internal LB IP and used on the platform, it must follow LB’s rules; external licensing can still happen under separate contracts.
The Bottom Line
- Platform primacy: 60% stays with the cooperative.
- Creator consistency: Founder uses the same tier system as everyone.
- Generous but limited returns: $10M cap prevents perpetual rent-seeking.
- Fair opportunity: Dynamic rebalancing keeps early and late sponsors in comparable bands.
- Labor protected: Caps apply to capital, not to your work.
This is infrastructure, not extraction.
Learn More
- Full Academic Paper — Complete technical explanation
- Patent Buckets FAQ — Plain-language Q&A
- Three-Tier IP Control Framework — How creators choose control vs. payoff
- I Built an Aircraft Carrier to Launch My Plane — Founder’s perspective
Contact: Support@LianaBanyan.org