The Fund employs a “passive management” (or indexing) investment approach designed to track the total return performance, before fees and expenses, of the Index. The Index is based on a proprietary methodology developed and maintained by Nasdaq, Inc (the “Index Provider”).
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.
The Index universe consists of all issuers from the Nasdaq Global Ex United States Large Mid Cap Index. 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.
The Index is reconstituted and rebalanced (i.e., companies are added or deleted and weights are reset based on Index rules) semi-annually in June and December.
As of July 18, 2024, the Index was composed of 100 constituents. The Index was established on June 24, 2024 and is owned and maintained by the Index Provider.
The Fund’s Investment Strategy
The Fund will generally use a “replication” strategy to achieve its investment objective, meaning it will invest in all of the component securities of the Index.
To the extent the Index concentrates (i.e., holds more than 25% of its total assets) in the securities of a particular industry or group of related industries, the Fund will concentrate its investments to approximately the same extent as the Index. The Index, and consequently the Fund, is expected to have significant exposure to companies in the Information Technology sectors. In addition, the Index may have significant exposure to one or more countries at any given time. The Index, and consequently the Fund, is expected to have significant exposure to Japanese companies. The Fund is non-diversified and therefore may invest a larger percentage of its assets in the securities of a single issuer or small number of issuers than diversified funds.
