QRIO's corporate afterlife?

Sony announced that it is quitting further development of the AIBO and QRIO robots, but I just found out that there is someone that jointly owns some of the QRIO related patents with Sony.  His name is Jinichi Yamaguchi and he has founded a company, Yamaguchi Robotics Institute, which is willing to license those patents to interested parties.  According to his website, he was able to strike a deal with Sony for joint ownership when he first started working for them as an outside adviser and later he played a key role in the development of the QRIO till he left in the summer of 2004.  Eager to find out where this leads to......