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A New Framework for IP Strategy Conversations: Ex Post vs. Ex Ante (from IP P®OSPE©TIVE)

(Editorial Note:  I have gotten some great feedback from my recent post 9 Out of 10 Patents are Worthless:  Here's Why and How to Keep it Happening from You (Part 1 of 4).  I am working on the next installment, so be on the look out for more of my thoughts on this meaningful topic.) Readers of the IP Asset Maximizer Blog will probably enjoy this very smart post from Ian McClure of IP P®OSPE©TIVE entitled "A New Legal Landscape for IP:  Ex Ante will Join Ex Post Services".  (While the post says some very flattering things about me, this is not why I am recommending it:  the IP P®OSPE©TIVE blog is consistently good, and Ian "gets" IP business issues.)  In this post, Ian frames IP Strategy in terms of "ex post" and "ex ante"--that is, instead of dealing with IP issues after it exists (i.e., ex

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IP Quality Must be a Key Feature in Any Financial Product Based on IP Assets

Neil Wilkof of the great IP Finance blog brought up a couple of interesting issues in his latest blog post entitled Securitization of IP: Urban Legend, or Playing Soon in a Theatre Near You? Specifically, he wonders if the desire for innovative (and not discredited) financial products today will result in the emergence of IP securitization as a model for raising capital and, if so, if the there will be a place for IP professionals in the process of valuing such IP.  I recommend Neil's post to anyone who is interested in how IP assets might be leveraged to create opportunities outside of the usual protection of the IP owner's products and technology. Moreover, I agree with Neil's view that if IP is going to be a recognized as a means to raise capital, improvements have to be made in the way finance and IP professionals interact. Put simply,

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Start-up Entrepreneurs & CEO’s: If Your Goal is Investment or Acquisition, You are Probably Patenting the Wrong Things

Do you treat your patents as a fence or a tollbooth? If you wish for your start-up technology company to obtain investment from or acquisition by a bigger player, you had better understand the difference. Most start-up technology company entrepreneurs and CEO's understand that patents can be key to establishing the value of a new business idea. Typically, entrepreneurs and CEO's such as yourself will engage patent attorneys to build an IP portfolio that protects the start-up's technology and products to the fullest extent possible. The motivation for this effort and expense is, of course, to to protect your start-up's idea from use by others. As management of a start-up you may be seeking to build an ongoing business around the patented technology, but often the goal of building a solid patent portfolio is to make your business an attractive target for investment or acquisition by a larger company. I believe that

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Everything’s Negotiable: How Corporations Can Drastically Reduce Their IP Legal Costs without Sacrificing IP Quality

Corporate legal managers and the business teams they support complain seemingly constantly abmoney bag symbolout outside counsel expense, and intellectual property ("IP") is no exception. And, why wouldn't they complain when every dollar spent on legal representation is money that is effectively removed from the company's P&L statement? This sets up an ongoing tension between corporations and law firms to reduce legal costs even while lawyers' incomes have sky-rocketed in recent years. For most corporate buyers of legal services, however, the ability to obtain substantive cost reduction has been somewhat limited due to the lack of transparent information available about legal fees. It may be even more difficult for corporate legal services buyers to gain meaningful reductions in IP costs because of the highly specialized nature of this area of law practice which, arguably, makes IP more of a "Black Box" than most areas. Moreover, regardless

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News Items: IAM 250, IP Metrics Benchmarking Study and New Blog for Innovation Entrepreneurs

Regular readers of the IP Asset Maximizer blog will note that my postings have been a bit sparse lately. I have been taking some time off with my family, and will be continuing to do so until later in June 2009. I appreciate your patience. I have some timely news items to share in the interim, however. IAM 250 Awards  logoiam I am proud to announce that I have been named one of the IAM 250 for 2009. This award is given by IAM Magazine to those non-corporate IP Strategists judged by their peers as the leaders in IP Strategy. With Duncan Bucknell, Suzanne Harrison, Kevin Rivette, Andrew Watson and many others whom I respect greatly on the list, it is a great honor to appear on this inaugural list of the world's leaders in

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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