THE SKINNY ON THE QUALITY OF VENTURE CAPITAL-RELATED INVESTMENT DECISIONS
If you are a counselor of venture capital firms or entrepreneurs who owning start-up companies that are targets of venture capitalists, you might already be familiar with the high rate of failure associated with such investments. Nonetheless, you may be surprised to find out that 50% of all money invested in venture capital is a loss. This figure, which is based upon separate research projects by a Chicago Graduate School of Business (“GSB”) professor and a former Chief Economist at the Securities and Exchange Commission, indicates that the actual return on venture capital investment is not much different from the average annualized returns on the smallest NASDAQ stocks. In particular, the return on venture capital investment from 1987 to 2001 in these smallest stocks was 62% as compared
50% of Venture Capital Investment is Lost: How Your Clients Can Improve These Odds by Using the Right Patent Analytics
Innovative Methods for Corporate Legal Managers to Reduce IP Counsel Costs
The Slideshare presentation that follows is an excerpt from a class that I am teaching to in-house legal managers about innovations in IP management. The topic of the presentation is innovative methods to reduce IP legal procurement and management costs. The goal of my presentation is not to get corporate IP types not to think outside the box but, rather, to think outside the truck the box came in. As such, many people may think these ideas are "way out," but if you start with small ideas, you end up with small improvements.
The "Dirty Little Secret of Patents" is that Most are Worthless to Their Owners. Here is Why.
Notwithstanding the vast corporate and entrepreneurial resources expended each year to file, prosecute, manage and maintain patents, a significant majority end up having little or no business value to their owners. Patents can end up being worthless for any number of reasons, most of which center on the fact that the claims do not cover a product or technology either currently or in the future being made, used or sold by either the owner or a third party. And, when a patent does not cover a current or future product or technology, one might argue its only residual value is as the attractive government document on the right.
No doubt exceptions exist to my bold assertion that most patents end up as worthless to their owners. That is why I used the
The IP Zone: A New Concept for Introducing Needed Information and Efficiencies into the Patent Monetization Market
Many corporations and entrepreneurs today understand that patents are increasingly bought, sold and traded, just like many other assets. However, the patent monetization market is only just emerging and, as a result, few information sources exist today to assist patent owners in selling their patents. The nascent nature of the industry also means that most patent owners do not themselves possess the necessary expertise to successfully monetize their patents. Put simply, today, patent monetization is "easier said than done." In view of the challenges currently faced by patent owners seeking to generate revenue by monetizing their patents, I was intrigued to learn about the "IP Zone" to be established later in 2009 in the Harlem area of New York City. The IP Zone will be physically located at 125st Street and Lenox Avenue in the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, which was established in the mid-1990's to provide enhanced job
Scott Garrison Guest Posting: A True Story of Wasted IP Assets & Why a Chief IP Officer Could Have Stopped the Loss
NOTE TO READERS: Since I am on vacation this week (well, sort of), I have asked my friend Scott Garrison to pen a piece about IP Strategy for me. He has been so gracious to do so, and the post follows. At bit about Scott: Scott Garrison is Chief IP Counsel and Assistant General Counsel for Scientific Games which, among other things, makes scratch off lottery tickets. Prior to joining SciGames, Scott was a senior IP attorney at Kimberly Clark and, prior to that, was a law firm patent attorney. Scott Garrison is a true IP Strategist and I am pleased to present him a forum to express his views on this blog. Scott's blog post: A short while ago I had an interesting conversation with an out of town acquaintance named "Mike" who works at a large international B2B ("business to business") corporation. I was interested to find out that his
Entrepreneurs: Ask 2 Simple Questions to Determine Whether IP Strategy is Critical to Your New Business Venture
Intellectual property ("IP") is often a subject that is "out of sight, out of mind" for entrepreneurs who are launching new business ventures. And, why shouldn't it be: business schools rarely teach much about law in general, let alone about the highly specialized world of IP law. Since non-business school trained entrepreneurs generally take their cues from the methods of their colleagues, it follows that a significant majority of entrepreneurs likely do not consider IP to comprise a necessary step when they are formulating their business plans. My conversations with entrepreneurs from all backgrounds over the years bears this out. When IP does form a fundamental basis of an entrepreneur's new venture, it is likely because scientific or technical subject matter forms the basis of the business. In this context, it makes sense that the scientific or technical core of the business model must be protected by seeking patent coverage. While
An Introduction to Patent Monetization Resources for Corporations and Entrepreneurs
For corporations and entrepreneurs seeking to monetize their un- or under-utilized patent rights for the first time, it can be difficult to know where to begin. The patent monetization market is not yet mature and, as with other emerging marketplaces, no established methodologies and few experts exist to guide patent owners through the process. Today, there are as many as 17 different business models used to monetize patent rights. More will likely spring up as the market continues to evolve, even while some of the current models will certainly fall away. With such a range of options, it is not surprising that those seeking to sell their patent rights may be confused about what path to take. This blog post is intended to provide an overview of ways that a corporate and individual patent owners can most effectively monetize their patent rights in today's market. The models discussed in this article
How a Patent Strategy Focused Only on Obtaining the Lowest Cost Patents May Reveal a Company’s Future Inability to Remain Viable
Commentators like me frequently rail against what we view as the often unnecessarily high cost of obtaining patent protection. In truth, many patents are overpriced and provide questionable business value to their clients. Over-priced patents do not form the basis of this article, however. Instead, this is about the opposite phenomenon, i.e., under-priced patents. Specifically, in this article, I describe a company's desire to obtain low cost patents and what such a patent strategy may reveal about its long term viability. I was recently contacted by a large printer manufacturer ("PrinterCo" for the purposes of this discussion) to see whether I was interested in preparing patent applications for the price of $1300 each. This price seemed somewhat ridiculous to me because even the most "bargain basement" patent preparation prices that pop up on my Google sidebar advertising do not seem to dip beneath a threshold level of $2800. And, as a
Confessions of a Reluctant Convert to Electronic Patent File Management Systems & Why I Am Now a True Believer
For many years, vendors of office automation systems expended considerable effort trying to convince corporate and law firm patent attorneys to adopt paperless file management systems by touting the time and money savings associated with electronic files over the traditional patent file system. However, relatively few patent attorneys have done so, instead, remaining loyal to the traditional three-sided manila patent file folder. Until recently I was one of those patent attorneys. Now that I have discovered the vast efficiencies and improvements possible with these electronic systems, the question is why I remained true to this clearly outdated system of maintaining client patent prosecution records. Given the remarkable efficiency and knowledge management improvements possible with electronic patent file management systems, there can be no viable excuse for either corporate or law firm patent attorneys not to adopt such systems.In retrospect, I think I found that the heft and history represented by the
Announcing a Great Event for Those Interested in IP Strategy in Europe
This week, I am using the IP Maximizer Blog to let readers know about an exciting upcoming IP Strategy event. My fellow IP Strategist, Jordan Hatcher, and his team at ipVA and colleagues at ExponentIP are working with Managing IP to provide a free webinar on IP Strategy in Europe on February 26, 2009 at 9 am EST. (I understand it is also going to be recorded.) I am very excited about this program because, as someone who advises on worldwide IP strategy, I am sure the insights provided in this webinar will elevate my knowledge and allow me to provide enhanced advice to my clients regarding IP protection in Europe.
Some might wonder why I am so looking forward to learning more about strategic IP outside of the US, so I will give some background.
By counting a number of many multi-national