Consulting Services
Intellectual Property
Landscape Evaluation
Similar to analyzing the competitive dynamics of a market that the company is considering entering, evaluating the intellectual property landscape can be equally (if not more) important.
While talented IP counsel can help draft and navigate the process of prosecuting patents on the company’s behalf, conducting internal due diligence on relevant prior art and mapping out the evolution of competitive and complimentary technologies facilitates identification of new areas of opportunity that are not yet covered by issued IP.
Creating overviews of the IP landscape and incorporating this information into product development roadmaps and strategy is a practice utilized by many large corporate technology companies. Early and mid-stage companies have much to gain by implementing a similar approach.
Commercialization Strategy
Opportunities to commercialize and derive value from intellectual property take many forms. For some companies, building portfolios of patents exclusively for defensive purposes is the right approach. For others, determining how to leverage their IP positions to engage in cross licensing agreements that open access to new product and market opportunities makes the most sense. Still for others, selling, exclusively licensing or utilizing IP as a core revenue generator maximizes the value of the assets.
Building models to assess the quantitative value (market sizes, product applicability, etc.) of a company’s IP helps frame which strategy to pursue. Outputs from these models are also very useful to help facilitate discussions with potential licensees, customers or acquirers depending outcome the company is looking to achieve.
PTO Strategy & IP Capture
While many components of the PTO’s process for evaluating patent applications are mechanical, determining the right response strategy for office actions can have a significant impact on the success of IP efforts. A broad range of options exist, so incorporating synthesized information around prior art and a host of other variables helps inform decision making.
Internal development efforts also often advance products and technologies as patents are pending, so implementing processes to capture and evaluate potential novel components of IP is critical. The ability to submit incremental additions to pending filings can materially strengthen the value of patents when issued.
The importance of IP for early and mid-stage technology companies continues to grow so having a definitive IP strategy and process in place helps to ensure that the value of new, innovative methods and products have an opportunity to be protected.
