IP Law Firm - Patent & Trademark Practice

$2.7M

Revenue

$1.0M

SDE

2.9x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is an intellectual property boutique founded in 2014, focused on patent prosecution, trademark protection, and IP enforcement for inventors, startups, and product-based businesses nationwide. The firm runs fully remote with a 10-person team of patent attorneys, patent agents, and paralegals, and has built a book of roughly 180 historical clients with 40 to 50 active relationships annually. In 2025 it did about $2.72M in revenue and just over $1M in SDE, a healthy 37 percent margin, which is strong for a services firm.

What makes this notable is the combination of a genuine moat and a scarcity-gated buyer pool. Patent work requires attorneys and agents who have passed the USPTO patent bar, which demands a technical science or engineering background, so this is not a practice you can staff off the street. That same barrier is why the seller flags that buyers must legally be an attorney or law firm, which meaningfully narrows the acquirer universe and should compress the price relative to open-market services deals.

The asking price is $2.9M against $1.02M SDE, a 2.85x multiple. The firm is described as capacity-constrained with demand exceeding supply, and it has a growing enforcement practice targeting ecommerce sellers, which is a large and expanding source of infringement disputes. The core risk is customer concentration and the fully personal nature of legal relationships, both of which need hard diligence.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is real: $1.02M SDE on $2.72M revenue is a 37 percent margin with a fully remote, low-overhead structure, so there is little fixed cost drag masking the true cash flow. Patent and enforcement work also carries long-cycle billing, meaning revenue is stickier than typical transactional legal work.
The moat is structural, not marketing. Patent practice requires USPTO patent bar admission which demands a technical degree, so you cannot simply hire generalist lawyers to replicate this. That licensing wall is the single biggest reason this firm has defensible pricing power and durable client retention.
Market tailwinds are genuine and non-discretionary. Businesses do not stop filing patents or defending their IP in a downturn because losing a patent window or letting infringement run is permanent damage, not a deferrable expense. The growing ecommerce enforcement niche is a bonus tailwind as Amazon and marketplace sellers increasingly police knockoffs.
There is an obvious operator lever: the firm is explicitly capacity-constrained with demand exceeding supply. That means a buyer who adds attorneys and patent agents can convert existing turned-away demand into revenue without spending on new client acquisition, which is the cleanest kind of growth.

How to improve it

Attack the capacity constraint immediately by recruiting one to two additional patent agents or associate attorneys. The listing says demand already exceeds supply, so every billable hour you add likely converts to revenue with minimal marketing cost, directly expanding SDE within the first year.
Build recurring revenue by productizing the trademark and IP monitoring services into annual retainer or subscription packages. Trademark watch, portfolio maintenance, and enforcement monitoring are naturally recurring and would smooth the lumpy project-based patent revenue while raising client lifetime value.
Systematize the ecommerce enforcement practice into a scalable offering with flat or tiered pricing. Amazon and marketplace sellers face constant knockoffs and represent a large, underserved, high-volume buyer base that fits a templated enforcement workflow far better than bespoke litigation.
Formalize the referral network into a structured channel program. The firm already has professional networks and referral relationships, but converting these into tracked, incentivized referral partnerships with product accelerators, VCs, and trademark filing services would create predictable inbound flow.
Reduce owner dependency in the first 90 days by mapping which clients and revenue tie directly to the founder. Negotiate the seller into the offered client-facing and business development role to retain relationships while you build a second rainmaker, protecting against post-close attrition.
Implement standardized workflow and billing automation to raise realization rates. As a remote firm the systems already exist, but tightening matter management and reducing write-offs on fixed-fee patent work can lift margin without adding a single client.

Diligence notes

Verify client concentration carefully. With only 40 to 50 active clients annually, a handful of large accounts could represent an outsized share of the $2.72M revenue, and losing one or two post-close could materially hit cash flow. Request revenue by client for the last three years.
Confirm the SDE build and the seller's personal billings. The owner is a producing attorney, so understand how much of the $1.02M SDE is the owner's own billable production versus true enterprise profit that transfers. This directly determines the real post-acquisition earning power.
Assess the buyer pool restriction and its impact on price and financing. Buyers must legally be an attorney or law firm, which narrows demand and may explain the 2.85x ask; confirm state bar rules on ownership transfer and whether the firm can be sold as an entity or only as an asset/book transfer.
Scrutinize revenue mix between patent prosecution, trademark, and enforcement, and the recurring versus one-time split. The listing claims recurring and long-cycle characteristics, but patent prosecution is largely project-based, so validate how much revenue actually repeats year over year.
Review staff retention risk and employment agreements. The firm's value lives in its patent attorneys and agents; confirm non-competes, compensation, and whether key producers are likely to stay after the founder exits, since their departure would gut the practice.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →