Patent licensing company MacroSolve sold its Illume Mobile business unit, which creates apps for third parties, to DecisionPoint Systems, in a move it said will enable its shareholders to “benefit from the increasing value of DecisionPoint stock as well as ongoing monetisation of MacroSolve’s intellectual property”.

MacroSolve will now focus on its patent licensing and “enforcement” activities, stating that “our patent is truly foundational to the mobile apps marketplace and we believe we will continue to unlock its value”.

In a statement, Jim McGill, executive vice-chairman of MacroSolve, said: “DecisionPoint has the resources to execute larger enterprise level contracts for mobile apps based upon our technology”.

DecisionPoint is an enterprise mobility specialist, and said in a statement that “the strategically important acquisition of Illume Mobile solidifies DecisionPoint's development and delivery capabilities in the growing enterprise iOS and Android mobile software development markets”.

MacroSolve and DecisionPoint formed an alliance earlier this year, to “work together to provide businesses with more efficient and reliable mobile computing solutions”.

MacroSolve sold the business for US$250,000 in cash and around US$750,000 of DecisionPoint stock – at closing of the transaction, it will own around 8 percent of the issued common stock of the acquirer. DecisionPoint will also pay ongoing royalties for apps using the MacroSolve patent, with up to US$500,000 of payments to follow if certain revenue milestones for Illume Mobile are met.

MacroSolve said that as of 31 March 2012, it had 19 legal proceedings open against 34 alleged infringers of its patent, having already settled with 21 companies it had previously taken action against.

Its patent is related to the collection of data using mobile devices and the transmission of this to a central server for processing.

The company recently filed suits alleging infringement by AOL and Bank of America.