I think the title explains it pretty well.
Which single patent has gained the patent holder the most money?
Adjusted for inflation, buyout, etc.
Thanks.
I nominate the patent on the anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor, held by Pfizer. It made 4.5 billion dollars last year. (PDF)
Alexander Graham Bell…the phone.
Did the YouTube guys have any patents? If so, I’d think they’re going to be rather high on the investment vs income as they started a year ago with bupkus and sold earlier this week for $1.6 billion.
Lipitor may have pulled in $4.5 billion, but what are the research, development, testing, production, advertising and liability insurance costs?
I thought of Bell’s phone patent as well. But the nationwide phone system was built with a multitude of patents, and most of the wealth was created long after that first patent had expired.
You could argue that none of the rest of the forthcoming value was possible without that first patent, and I would agree with that. If so, there’s no question that the phone patent was most lucrative in constant dollars. Over a century of monopoly it would have been worth trillions in today’s dollars, far past the value of Google or any contemporary tech company.
But as a single stand-alone patent, a pharmaceutical would seem most likely to be most valuable. Remember that a drug can bring in billions every single year for multiple years, far offsetting any costs associated with it.
The OP needs to come back and clarify.
Is Youtube a patentable product? Besides, my figures were old; Lipitor made over $10 billion in 2004, and over $12 billion in 2005.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe a patent in-and-of-itself won’t make you any money. A patent only gives you the right to sue.
I nominate Cocoa Cola.
Sold everywhere, for many years.
Coca Cola is not patented. If it were, they would have to disclose the recipe. It is a trade secret.
Mmmm… Cocoa Cola. Chocolatey goodness!
Though not the same thing the OP is asking, a more concrete question might be:
What patent has sold for the most money to someone who wanted the rights to it?
Or
What patent lawsuit garnered the greatest windfall for the patent holder?
Those are probably easier to answer, but I can’t find good google results. I found a site claiming that “Apple Computer Inc. announced Wednesday it agrees to pay Singapore-listed company Creative Technology Ltd. 100m USD to settle a dispute over patented technology on Apple’s iPod music player.” I highly doubt that’s even close to the record.
Doesn’t RIMM(?) want like 1B from Blackberry?
I’m sorry. . .a company called NTP holds the patent that RIM uses, and Blackberry uses RIM.
There’s some writings that they agreed to 450M to settle it, but that that fell through.
Yes, let’s use these questions. Thanks. 
Also, was the phone a single patent or was there one for the ringer, one for the transformer, one for the headset, ect…
Bell Labs has been a very prolific creator of things to patent. In early 2003, they obtained their 30,000th patent, and they get on average, about two more patents per day, so they’re probably up to 31,000 patents now.
There’s probably over 100 patents in a basic phone - everything from Bell’s original patent to patents on the transistors, wire insulation, coil winding methods, plastic molding techniques and so on.
While I’m thinking of prolific patenting, nobody comes close to IBM. They’ve obtained more patents per year than any other company for the past thirteen years and have over 40,000 patents.
I still like the story of Mrs. Nesmith (Mike’s mother), who invented Liquid Paper. She made her fortune with it, then sold the rights for it just before the computer revolution and the lack of need for Liquid Paper.
Well, Chester Carlson, inventor of the photocopier, recieved over $150 000 000 for his invention. That’s a starting point, anyway.