Fallback Image

The News is Out: We Now Have an Intangible Asset-Based Corporate Economy

(Ed. Note:  A family emergency has been keeping me away from the office.  The good news is that I have been catching up on my RSS feeds and reading some really interesting stuff, albeit a bit late.  One of these interesting reads is a David Brooks piece dealing with corporate intangible assets.  Since this was published Christmas week, others may have missed it, too.  And, when pundits pick up on what you have been talking about for years, I means that the public is finally "getting" it!) David Brooks’ Op-Ed in the December 22, 2009 New York Times raises some interesting points about our new intangible economy.  In this piece, entitled “The Protocol Economy,” Brooks recognizes that we have moved from an economy that makes “stuff” –that is, a physical goods economy—to one that deals in “protocols.”  (I think it would be more appropriate to call our evolving intangible

Fallback Image

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

Fallback Image

9 Out of 10 Patents are Probably Worthless: Why and How to Prevent this from Happening to You (Part 1 of 4)

I decided to start 2010 with a controversial premise:  what if 9 out of 1o patents--or 90 %-- issued in the US were worthless?  Believe it or not, but this probably is not too far off the mark.  By "worthless," I mean that it is likely that only 10% of patents in force today meet each (and every) of the below criteria:

1)  The patent directly or indirectly protects a product or technology that is being sold in the market today;

2)  The patent covers a product or technology where there is or likely will be viable competition in the marketplace such that a patent is needed to legally restrain competition; and

3) The patent owner is ready, willing and able to bring a patent infringement suit against an infringer or it is likely that your competitor believes that it will possibly do so.

Unless

Fallback Image

Success in Innovation Requires IP Counseling on the Front End: Here’s How to Make it Happen

The 2009 Open Innovation Summit was held in Orlando two weeks ago.  The event was attended by corporate practitioners of Open Innovation, including people from P&G, GSK Consumer, Cisco, Whirlpool, J&J, HP (here are Phil McKinney's slides), Clorox, and many others.  Leading consultants in Open Innovation also attended, including Stefan Lindegaard of Leadership+ Innovation, Braden Kelley of Blogging Innovation and Robert Brands of Innovation Coach.  A number of vendors of services were there, too.  I thought this was a great knowledge share event, and a must do for folks wanting to learn more about Open Innovation.  Another Summit is planned for August 201o in Chicago. At the Summit, we spent much of the 3 days hearing how the attending companies, many of which include those in the Fortune 100, view Open Innovation as a critical aspect of sustainable growth and profits.  We also heard about

Fallback Image

Beware of Bogus Patent Analytics: Forward-Citation Analysis Leads to False Conclusions about Significance of Client’s Patent

Patent application filing and issuance data can be a useful tool to extract valuable competitive business information that is "hiding in plain sight."  For example, in industries where patents are viewed as pertinent for creating and protecting long term value, patent filing data can present a strong signal about where your competitors are investing their time and money in innovation that may result in their future product or technology offerings.  In another example, such data analysis, also known as "patent analytics" or "patent landscaping," can provide useful information about potential new markets for your company's technology.  In this regard, for example, a chemical manufacturer can review how others are utilizing their products by reviewing patent filings.  For patent owners, analytics can reveal whether infringement may be occurring or whether it might have a higher value using forward citation analysis, which is a review of how many times a patent is cited in the later record of other patents. Various flavors of patent analytics are

Fallback Image

Reality Check for Inventors: Most Corporations Will Not Give Your Idea a First Look. Here’s Some Reasons Why.

Many people assume that corporations will readily consider good ideas from external sources, presumably because from the outside it makes sense to do so.  That is, why should a corporation spend the time and money to create something from scratch if someone else has invented a product or technology that is a good fit and can be acquired at a reasonable cost?  Against this assumption, countless numbers of inventors have expended considerable time, money and hopes on patenting their inventions and submitting them to corporations for review. 
The sad truth is that most of the money and efforts of these hopeful inventors are wasted.  Few corporations today have policies that make it possible for their employees to gather unsolicited ideas from outside of their existing employee or supplier base.  Ideas sent to the corporation by outside inventors rarely get reviewed for merit by the relevant business teams.  Rather, after the inventor submitting the idea is

Fallback Image

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

Fallback Image

Want to Obtain Patents to Protect You from Competitors Knocking Off Your Innovative Products or Technology? It’s Easy-Don’t Be "Selfish"

Recently the CEO of a start-up asked me for the most important advice I could give before she filed a patent application directed toward protecting her company's core technology. In response, I said "don't be a selfish patent applicant." Few patent applicants obtain such counsel from their advisers and it shows: the vast majority of patents are written from a selfish perspective. (Note that I am using "selfish," in the context that the term is used in marketing i.e., thinking that others see the same things in your product or technology as you do. When one selfishly markets her product or technology, she assumes that others will buy it for the benefits she sees, not for the reasons upon which consumers will base their purchasing decisions. So when I say that most patents are written "selfishly," I mean that applicants (both individual and corporate inventors alike) approach the patenting process with

Fallback Image

Why Does Your Company Fail to Treat IP Asset a Corporate Asset? A New Article Proposes Organizational Behavior as the Problem

While we can argue about the exact amount, without question, intangible assets form the majority of corporate value today. Matters involving IP are therefore predominately business issues, as opposed to legal issues or technical issues. For example, IP in the form of patents or trademarks (or both) frequently serves as a basis of the premium pricing that can be obtained from a differentiated product line. Also, IP directed toward a competitor's technology can legally limit the ability of a competitor to expand its offerings, thus decreasing its ability to compete. There are many other examples of the business value of IP, all which when strategically obtained and managed can greatly increase the overall financial position of the corporation using IP as a business tool. Notwithstanding the substantial dollars associated with corporate IP decisions, most organizations leave questions of IP in the hands of their legal and technical teams. Of course, many

Fallback Image

A Response to PWC’s "Starry-Eyed" View of the Value of Litigation as Effective Way to Monetize Patents

rose colored glassesI recently became aware of this patent litigation analysis prepared by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (“PWC”) (hat tip: Marcus Malek of the Intangitopia blog). The report appears to be rigorously prepared from data obtained from a large number of reported patent litigation cases dating from 1995. I read this report with interest and think that anyone who is interested in the ROI of patent enforcement should read it also. The data provide a wealth of information for anyone even thinking about bringing a patent case or who is involved in defending against claims of patent infringement. Although the data in the PWC provides informational value, I nonetheless have a big problem with the following assertion that is prominently presented on page 18 under the title “What This Means for Your Business”: "In light of the findings in this study, patent

1 3 4 5 6 7 10