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Need Broad Patents Fast? Try This.

Sieze the day: take your patent allowance!That title got your attention, didn’t it? It was meant to. After another successful round of patent application examinations for several clients in the last year, I thought others would like access to my proven patent acquisition methodology. Certainly, there’s a lot more than I can include in this post, and what is presented here should be considered to be only a high level introduction to my process. Moreover, every client requires focused attention to generate the desired patent protection, and not every business scenario mandates this comprehensive approach. But, for those situations where company leadership determines that strong patent protection is a key to achieving the desired business outcomes from investment in innovative products and technology, this methodology is not only recommended, it is required for success. Put simply, if you do the hard work

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Companies Create Risk by Leaving IP Strategy Out of Innovation

I recently had to give bad news to a new client, the CEO of a successful global electronic hardware company. This CEO hired me earlier this year to help ensure that his company's upcoming innovations, which were the product of a several year turnaround program, were protected from competitive knock-offs. I have completed a couple of projects for the company to date, and he now wanted to discuss IP protection for a new product for the European market that would serve as a platform for later product spin-offs both there and in the US.

Companies Create Risk by Leaving IP Strategy Out of Innovation

This new product incorporated a number of highly innovative features and almost certainly could generate broad patent

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IAM Top 300 IP Strategists for 2013 Released this Week: I am on the list for the 5th year in a row!

Please indulge me as I pat myself on the back-- Largely as a result of the efforts that I have put into this blog over the last 5 + years and of the resulting recognition of my expertise by my peers, I have again been named to the Intellectual Asset Magazine Strategy 300.   This award acknowledges my expertise in IP Strategy and Intellectual Asset Management and is given only to those people who actively practice in areas related to capturing and leveraging business value from IP and intangible assets. Although I have been included on the list in each of the previous years of the award's existence, inclusion on the list is particularly satisfying this year.  Specifically, the 2013 list was compiled from scratch as the result of substantive original research from the staff at IAM.  I did not pay to be included.  (More on the methodology here.)  Recognition

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IP and Intangible Asset Strategy: The Easy to Deploy, Not-So-Secret Weapon for Capturing Business Value

IP and intangible asset strategies are a critical feature of ALL businesses regardless of size, product or customer.  But why?  Put simply, leaders need to be comfortable that their companies have the mechanisms in place to capture the value that you see possible from the venture.  Without foresight and action, other businesses will be able to capitalize on the first/early mover's advantage. This happens often when a US company develops a new product, as well as the market for the product, and ex-US companies come in with a lower priced product to take the market away from the first mover.  I have also seen customers (that is, big box or other consumer facing retailers) actually instigate the knock-offs:  when the first mover demonstrates that a market exists for a product, the retailer will reach out to an Asian manufacturer to create a private label product with the same consumer benefits as that

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The Apple vs. Samsung Verdict Actually Demonstrates that Patents Do Promote Product Innovation

In the time that the Apple vs. Samsung patent fight has been underway, we have been inundated with an untold number of articles on how Apple is stifling innovation in the SmartPhone world.  (Haven't seen these:  just do a Google search for "Apple stif . . ." you don't have to type any more than this--the search auto-completes itself.) I often take a contrarian view from that stated by most "expert" commentators--be they members of the press or actual patent professionals, and the Apple v. Samsung verdict is no exception:  I think the result actually demonstrates that the patent system is working just fine in this instance, thank you very much.  But how can this be when Samsung got hit with more than a BILLION US DOLLAR jury verdict last week?!?  Doesn't the fact that Samsung could not make a product without infringing Apple's multitude of patents mean that

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How Patent Whitespace Analysis Can Set a Company Up for Sustainable Failure

I spent a few days last week at the Innovation Cubed Conference in Orlando.  While there, I heard two instances of use of a term that I absolutely hate, at least when it is used by innovation professionals to define in some manner the innovation processes of their respective organizations.   This word is:

PATENT WHITESPACE ANALYSIS

Not only do I hate this phrase, I think that companies that utilize patent (or IP) whitespace analysis to define their product and technology development pathways are quite possibly setting themselves up for failure.  And, it's bad enough that a single innovation project might fail as a result of the faulty data inputs that can occur from relying on whitespace assessments, but I think that most corporate processes incorporating patent whitespace analysis are based upon faulty methodology, thus setting the organization up for sustainable failure. For the uninitiated, when applied to the patent world,

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We’re Measuring the Wrong Things: Inventiveness and Patents Do Not Equal Innovation

Few things infuriate me more than supposed experts who make statements along the lines of "patents are critical to innovation."  I have avoided stating my views widely in this forum because I didn't want to get into a contest of one upmanship with my patent lawyer peers.  However, in the last couple of weeks, several pieces of information have hit my radar screen that make this seem like the right time to go public with my views. Let my position be very clear:  we create a false dichotomy when saying "innovation is not possible without patents."  The issue is much more complex and nuanced than this:  in a particular instance, patents may be critical to innovation, but they might also be only slightly important or--likely in the majority of situations--they might be wholly irrelevant to innovation.  (I talk more about this in this recent interview in Innovation Management

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R & D Tax Credits Mean Little to Businesses That Do Not Competently Manage Their Intangible Assets

This week, President Obama will announce a $100 billion proposal to stimulate the economy, where much of the focus is to be placed in the area of R & D tax credits. In addition to making the R & D tax credit permanent, Obama will seek increasing one of the credits available from 14 to 17 percent. This announcement brought to mind a blog post that

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Much Ado About Patent Marking: Why It is So Hard for Corporations to Get It Right and Why False Marking Lawsuits Might be a Good Thing Overall

Misalignment between patent and business functions is the underlying cause of false patent markingIt is fairly rare for patents to make hit the radar screen of mainstream news outlets but, recently, there has been much space allotted to the issue of patent mis-marking and lawsuits being brought by third parties for "violation" of the law requiring that products cannot be marked with an incorrect patent number.  Indeed, the usually substance-free local paper in my mother's Southwest Florida community reported about the flood of patent mis-marking lawsuits.  And, it is no wonder that the undoubtedly arcane issue of patent marking has reached the status of "news" in a small-town paper given the huge number of cases currently pending in the federal courts.  It seems as if patent marking litigation may be the new business model for trial lawyers who are

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Innovation Professionals–Take Charge of Patents to Ensure ROI of Your Efforts (includes a case study)

Recently, I have been spending considerable time working with innovation professionals to demonstrate the value-creation opportunities available by embracing IP strategy as an aspect of their processes, and why patent drafting should be an aspect of their roles and responsibilities.  More specifically, my efforts have focused on why and how patents matter to the ROI of corporate innovation today.  Most business people would likely acknowledge that patents are important to protect their products from competition, however, the vast majority of the innovation professionals whom I meet have no idea how critical patent strategy can be to the success of their business plans. Modern innovation processes typically start with identification of a consumer need or the like.  In so doing, the innovation team undertakes detailed research to draw dimension around a product that will solve this consumer need.  This research will be directed toward identifying the multiple ways the consumer need can