| Investment Objective: |
The Fund employs a "passive management" investment approach designed to track the total return performance of Nasdaq International Patent Leaders Index. The Index is a rules-based full market capitalization-weighted index that consists of companies from the Nasdaq Global Ex United States Large Mid Cap Index with the most valuable patent portfolios. Issuers of all eligible securities are ranked by the patent values as determined by IPR Strategies. IPR Strategies is an independent data provider that seeks to determine the potential value of an issuer by quantifying such issuer's intangible assets, such as its intellectual property and research and development activities, as represented by patents held by such issuer. To value a company's patent portfolio, IPR Strategies utilizes a proprietary valuation model that takes into account patent data collected from multiple sources, including patent offices and corporate filings, as well as a variety of other economic data, including actual values from previously traded patents. The model determines a "patent value estimate," which represents the estimated dollar value of an issuer's portfolio of patents. The 100 issuers with the largest patent values as determined by IPR Strategies are selected for inclusion in the Index. |
