Building a patent portfolio should be like building any type of structure. The better the architectural plan, the better the resulting structure. Remarkably though, other than my companies, I am not aware of any company that generates a plan for building a patent portfolio.
Companies have an annual patent budget, and a targeted number of inventions to patent protect per year. They often have an invention disclosure process and review process to identify their best inventions to protect. There are even commercially available tools that help manage a patent portfolio. But all of this is focused on individual patent planning and annually budget driven.
Oftentimes, there isn’t a plan for what a patent portfolio should include when the patents are needed many years down the road. Companies then end up collecting individual patents on a year-by-year basis, until they’re needed. At that point, the company culls through its patents to see what it can use.
If a house were built this way, the builder would collect building materials for years and then decide to build the house from what’s been collected. The builder may have enough flooring for a 4,000 square foot home, but only enough roofing materials for a 2,000 square foot home. The builder may have enough plumbing fixtures for four bathrooms, but no piping to connect to the fixtures. You get the picture.
A well architected patent plan, like a well architected house plan, includes a design centered around the end product. It includes the materials needed to build the end product with no extraneous parts and it further includes the steps to convert the materials into the end product.
When a patent portfolio is built based on a well-architected patent plan, patent value and patent ROI are maximized. For technology companies looking to exit, a well architected patent portfolio can significantly increase its exit value and its chances of reaching the exit.
*Please note that this article is not legal advice; it is not a legal opinion; nor should you rely on it as legal advice or as a legal opinion. This article merely expresses the author’s general thoughts on a topic regarding the business of patents. Nothing in this article establishes any form of an attorney-client relationship between you, the reader, and the author of this article.
