纳斯达克私募市场起诉Hiive关于风险投资二次出售专利：将重塑Pre-IPO市场的诉讼

Nasdaq Private MarketSues Hiive Over VentureSecondaries Patent Institutional Research Group Emily ZhengSenior Research Analyst,Venture Capitalemily.zheng@pitchbook.com Caleb WilkinsData Analystpbinstitutionalresearch@pitchbook.comPublished on May 18, 2026 The lawsuit that will reshape the pre-IPO market PitchBook is a Morningstar company providing the most comprehensive, mostaccurate, and hard-to-find data for professionals doing business in the private markets. Contents Key takeaways1The lawsuit that will define secondaryinfrastructure2One patent, every platform’s problem3References5 Key takeaways •The venture secondary market has never been standardized, and the race to buildefficient infrastructure for closing trades has now become a legal battleground.In March 2026, NPM received a patent for its automated clearing and settlementplatform. Weeks later, it filed a lawsuit against Hiive for allegedly building a nearlyidentical product. •NPM is seeking a permanent injunction that could bar Hiive from using thepatented technology in the US entirely and make Hiive pay for all past, present, andfuture damages. •NPM is not filing this lawsuit to extract a licensing fee and move on. By demandinga trial by jury, NPM seeks a public verdict that establishes US Patent No. 12,572,980as foundational IP, deters competitors from building similar products, increasesNPM’s market share, and removes Hiive’s rival offering from the market. •The harsh reality is that most venture secondary platforms have not yet automatedprocesses end to end, and if the verdict is in NPM’s favor, they may never. •This case will settle more than a patent dispute. The outcome will decide whoholds the keys to an essential component of venture secondaries trading. The lawsuit that will define secondary infrastructure About US Patent No. 12,572,980 The unfortunate reality is that the venture secondary market is inefficient. Startupsdo not have standardized transfer policies. Most trades involve right-of-first-refusalclauses, co-sale agreements, and board approval requirements that add weeks to theprocess. Some of venture’s biggest names, including Anthropic and OpenAI,3, 4havebanned unauthorized secondary tradesaltogether. When a deal does move forward, ittypically does so through emails and phone calls, with someone manually shepherdingthe process from paperwork to wire transfers. Start to finish, these transactionsroutinely take 90 days or more. The process is not broken; rather, the infrastructure forit was never built. NPM standardizes the clearing andsettlement of private company sharetransfers through its Private CompanySecurities Clearing and SettlementPlatform.1This platform provides anend-to-end workflow that increasesspeed, reliability, and transparency inthe venture secondary market.2 That structural inefficiency is exactly what Nasdaq Private Market (NPM) has spentyears trying to solve. The firm built a platform that automates private securitiesclearing and settlement for startups, from ingesting all types of transfer documents, toconverting them into a standardized format, to notifying all parties. In March 2026, theUS Patent and Trademark Office issued Patent No. 12,572,980 to NPM, protecting thatentire workflow. The platform’s main feature istransforming nonstandardizedinputs, such as emails and phone calltranscripts, into standardized outputs.Once the standardized order is created,the platform automatically notifiesthe issuing company, which typicallytriggers a countdown for the issuer’sright of first refusal. The issuer canthen log in and decide on the transfer.Once that decision is made, the platformgenerates necessary documents andsends signature requests to all relevantparties. Next, the platform initiateswire transfers and distributes relevantfees upon receipt of the funds. Finally,the platform generates transactionconfirmations and other relevantdocuments. The platform completeseach of these steps automatically. The problem is that Hiive, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based pre-IPO marketplace,built a product called Hiive Transaction Administration that automates the sameclearing and settlement process.5No other secondary platform offers a commercialproduct specifically for closing private market transactions. NPM filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Delaware for three countsof infringement—the unauthorized use of intellectual property (IP), including patents—and is demanding a jury trial.6Here are the counts in plain English: ‐Count 1: Direct infringement:NPM claims that Hiive’s platform replicatesits patented workflow. For example, Hiive’s platform also convertsnonstandardized inputs into a standardized-order format using an API and usesautomatic notification systems for all relevant parties. ‐Count 2: Induced infringement:NPM claims that Hiive is deliberatelyencouraging others to infringe on the patent by promoting the use ofits platform. This development is a major leapforwar