Posts Tagged: "patent portfolio"

How and Why LinkedIn Learned to Love Patents

In 2012, LinkedIn found itself a potential target for corporate patent asserters. LinkedIn had revenue reaching nearly $1 billion, with growth of 86%, yet owned only 22 patents. However, this changed fundamentally from 2012 to mid-2016, when LinkedIn grew its organic portfolio from 36 to over 1,000 patent assets and purchased more than 900, dramatically reducing its risk profile.

Strategic Patent Portfolio Decision-making: From filing to maintenance

When it comes to making strategic patent portfolio decisions, it is more important than ever to be informed, thorough and discriminating with your decision-making. In short, the number of strategic decisions available to those obtaining and maintaining a portfolio are greater than ever and, in fact, have only continued to explode in number. So many strategic decisions to consider throughout the innovation lifecycle, where should you start? Join me, Carlo Cotrone (GE Oil & Gas) and Edmund White (CPA Global) for a free webinar on Thursday, June 1 at 2PM ET.

Strategic Patent Portfolio Decision-making: From filing to maintenance

When it comes to making patent portfolio decisions, it’s important to be strategic. But with so many strategic decisions to consider throughout the innovation lifecycle, where should you start? Join Gene Quinn, patent attorney and founder of IPWatchdog.com, and a panel of experts for a free webinar on Thursday, June 1 at 2PM ET.

Patent Strategy: 6 strategies for obtaining a patent quickly

Patents confer rights and when you have rights you have an asset that can be sold or licensed. But you will have an asset that can in some circumstances be sold or licensed even before you actually obtain a patent. Increasingly more and more companies are looking for outside ideas and inventors can and do strike deals before a patent is issued. It is true, however, that the further you are down the path toward a final solution being real the more valuable your invention will be. With this in mind, there may be instances where getting some patent protection quickly could be beneficial. This article discusses several strategies for more quickly obtaining a patent.

Patent Market Trends and the Key Factors Impacting Patent Valuation

While patent portfolios are entering the market other patent portfolios continue to leave the market having been purchased. Asking prices seem to have also reached an equilibrium point, according to Kent Richardson of the ROL Group. There are buyers on the market looking for good portfolios, both tech companies who themselves have thin patent portfolios who are looking to back-fill their portfolios. Some non-practicing entities that had previously left the market have also started to come back as buyers over the last 12 to 18 months, at least kicking tires and strategically acquiring where the assets are strong and the price is right.

Does Your IP Strategy Need a Tune-Up?

While many, if not most, enterprises have instituted, and are executing, an IP strategy of some sort, an important question should be considered: Is the IP strategy optimal, such that its execution extracts maximum value from company technology? Some corporate IP strategies may seem sound in theory, but in practice they are (a) selectively or inconsistently applied within or across projects, (b) incompatible with how teams actually work, (c) relatively narrow in how they perceive innovation, and (d) distracting to innovators and IP practitioners while consuming enormous resources. Ultimately, the return on IP investment of such strategies may be questionable. However, enterprises that periodically take a step back to reflect on their current IP strategies, and recalibrate them if appropriate, are likely to derive the greatest possible value from IP.

Free Webinar: How Bad Data Leads to Bad Decisions

Join me on Thursday, January 26, 2017, at 12pm ET for a free webinar discussion that will focus on decision making for dealmakers. This free webinar will approach this material first from the lens of the dealmaker who needs to know that they have all the relevant information necessary to confidently assess value and close a deal. We will ask, and answer, the question about which information can prove to be most useful and why. We will then pivot the discussion to bring in data experts to discuss how they work to find that information and deliver it as actionable intelligence so that good decisions are made with good data.

Nanoco acquisition of Kodak patents increases holdings in QLED display tech

On Monday, November 28th, the UK-based nanotech firm Nanoco Group announced that it had acquired a patent portfolio from Eastman Kodak in the field of quantum dot electroluminescent displays (QLED). The commercial terms of the deal were undisclosed at the time of the announcement. According to a statement from Nanoco CEO Michael Edelman, the acquisition reflects the company’s belief that liquid crystal display (LCD) technologies will dominate in the coming years while QLED tech could become a very valuable contender in display tech over the long term.

What is the best way to assess the potential value of a patent portfolio?

What is the best way to assess the potential value or use of a patent portfolio? Before we examine this, it’s important to clarify that a patent only has value in the context of its place in a portfolio and in how the portfolio is used to support the organization’s business strategy. Let’s look at two examples. A Patent Assertion Entity will evaluate patent value based solely on the potential revenue that will come from a licensing program. On the other hand, an operating company typically places a higher value on patents that provide protection. This can be the ability to defend leadership in a profitable market category or the ability to offer protection as a sole-sourced product’s revenue stream.

When Do Operating Companies Sell Their Patents?

What causes operating companies to sell their patents? Our intuition tells us that patent sales take place when the seller is in financial distress or the company is underperforming. We asked ourselves whether data aligned with our intuition… 71% of the sales occurred when the seller underperformed the overall market by more than 5 percentage points.

Patent Landscaping: Sorting the grain from the chaff

Companies at the cutting edge of their industries have realized the immense value of their patent portfolios and are still trying to make the most of that value – but it is not easy. A semiconductor or electronics company can have tens of thousands of patents; finding the patents that are the most valuable is one of its biggest problems. These patents are needed to determine the strategy for patent sale, licensing or litigation, and without them the company is basically stuck and can’t move forward. The process is like sorting the grain from the chaff.

Finding the Best Patents – Comparative Patent Ranking Systems – Citations Still Matter

Over the past 18 months, our clients have begun to show greater interest in international patents (e.g. non-US). Increasing client interest in international patents corresponds with the general rise in importance of international patents (continuing ascension of the Chinese market, potential for unitary patent for Europe), more anti-patent owner decisions in the US, and greater patent litigation outside the US.…

Is Patent Licensing or Sales Part of Your IP Strategy?

To maximize the return on investment from a patent portfolio, patent owners must determine which is more lucrative: sales or licensing. In general, patent licensing promises the highest total return on monetizing an IP portfolio because the IP owner can license the same asset or (a single patent or portfolio) to a number of different licensees. On the other hand, it may take three to five years to realize significant revenue from licensing. Additionally, licensing comes with a host of potential risks including litigation, invalidity arguments, and more. More and more frequently patent sales/transfers are part of licensing settlements to ensure there is more of a ‘win/win’ result for negotiating parties.

Demand Driven Patent Acquisition: Time to get busy

My view is we have reached a time of strategic purchasing that we not seen or experienced previously. Here’s why: If you want to know the future, technically, you can’t. But, if you’d like to know about the patent property rights regarding future technologies, it’s easy. The patent applications being filed now and already issued will be those that are asserted over the next two decades. If your tech company hopes to be a part of that future, buying into that future, now, makes a certain amount of sense. It is only a question of price. Budgets are being put together, right now, to develop the contours of future technologies by virtue of R&D, acquisition of competitors, and targeting markets and products; it is reasonable that the very same budgeting process should be in place for acquisition of rights. Certainly budgets for patent filing are in place – these should include acquisition as well.

Common Afflictions of University Patent Portfolios

There are a few things that we notice when we look at the patent portfolios originated from the universities. There is no rule that applies to every single university but there are definitely trends that one can spot quickly. For example, universities tend not to file many continuation applications, and instead let patent applications issue out. When the only patent application in the family issues, the prosecution is closed, and there is no ability to file continuation applications. We also don’t see enough attention to portfolio pruning as a way of containing cost. Universities engage in very early stage research, which is speculative by its nature, and therefore many patent applications are filed on technologies that do not turn out to have significant economic value later on. This is a very good recipe for accumulating patents with little or no value.