The typical enterprise organization can hold thousands of patents, with dozens added each year. This intellectual property has the power to produce revenue for the company, create barriers to entry for competitors, and mitigate risks from other patent holders. Of course, patents also give the holder a temporary monopoly, during which time they can overtake competitors and gain tremendous market share.
Categories: Patent Cost, Patent Analysis, IP Monetization
Innovation, without insight, is essentially impossible. And when you’re in a constantly evolving industry, insight into your competitors’ IP and patents can prove invaluable when you’re trying to innovate within your own company.
Categories: Patent Analysis
We’ve discussed in several articles why your IP intelligence should come at the forefront of innovation. We’ve talked about why IP intelligence is a necessary part of your corporate strategy. We looked at reasons to keep IP intelligence within the business sector of your company and not just the legal department. All of these things are crucial to growing and protecting your business.
Categories: Innovation, Patent Strategy, Patent Analysis
Very recently, Uber announced its new patent purchasing program, which seeks to expedite the process of purchasing intellectual property. The open application window begins April 24 and closes May 23 of this year. During that time, Uber will likely be inundated with patent portfolios of all types and sizes, as the current patent owners propose a simple price that Uber can then take or walk away from.
Categories: Patent Analysis
It was a productive meeting, really. The agenda was clear and concise. The presentations were quick and helpful. Everyone thought it went well. Until the CEO said, “What the %$!@?”
Categories: Innovation, Patent Strategy, Patent Analysis
This is the fourth in a series of articles about technology landscapes, or patent landscapes. In the first post “Why I Hate the Phrase ‘Technology Landscape’,” we explain that the phrase “technology landscape” means different things to different people in different contexts. In the second article “Technology Landscapes and Patent Monetization” we discuss how a technology landscape is only the starting point towards making business decisions regarding patent monetization (making money on your patents). The third article investigated the use of a technology landscape to support a corporate growth strategy for an emerging company.
The question many businesses ask shouldn’t be “how much would maintaining our patent portfolio cost?” Instead, the savvy corporation knows that the amount of money that could be lost due to neglecting their patent portfolio is not a risk they’re willing to take.
Categories: Patent Analysis
When your corporate strategy doesn’t involve moving your IP considerations to the front of the M&A process, you will, at some point, face particular consequences.
High-profile intellectual property purchases have been in the news a lot lately. First, there’s Google, which has turned its focus to buying up patents left and right in an effort to protect their innovations. There’s also Facebook, which recently plunked down a large chunk of change for messaging app WhatsApp. We also mentioned Unilever’s massive purchase of Dollar Shave Club in a previous blog.
Categories: Patent Strategy, Patent Analysis
Some of the biggest news in the past few years regarding IP and patents hasn’t come from innovation but rather from acquisition of innovation. One of the most-discussed was Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp, a free messaging app for mobile devices, that closed for $19 billion.
The big question on everyone’s lips was this: Why would Facebook, which has its own robust messaging system and also costs nothing to users, want to purchase a less popular product with fewer bells and whistles? Even now, reports state that Facebook has lost money on the deal, but they’re still pleased as punch with their purchase.
Categories: Patent Strategy, Patent Analysis
