Each year, companies invest significant financial resources building and maintaining patent portfolios. But instead of contributing to the bottom line, the patent portfolio often evolves into a growing cost center burdened by maintenance fees, prosecution expenses, and legal overhead. The patents protect some of the company’s products, and make nice plaques for the corporate hallways, but serve little other purpose. Patent monetization offers an opportunity to reverse this dynamic. Done correctly, it can transform dormant intellectual property into a durable revenue stream. Done poorly, it can create reputational risk, misaligned incentives, and wasted capital.

It is hardly a secret that corporate IP departments are under growing pressure to do more with less. Budgets are tightening, leadership increasingly expects patents to deliver measurable business value, and artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how patent work can be performed. What does this mean for the future of in-house patent teams—and for the law firms that support them? Our conversation explores several major trends shaping patent strategy today, including the shift toward quality over quantity in patent portfolios, the growing emphasis on maintenance fee pruning and portfolio discipline, and the evolving relationship between in-house counsel and outside patent law firms. We also examine how companies are using competitive intelligence, patent analytics, and emerging tools to guide filing strategy, manage costs, and identify licensing and enforcement opportunities. We also tackle one of the biggest questions facing the IP profession: What can AI realistically do for patent practitioners today—and what can’t it do yet?

Spurred by reports that House leaders are trying to fast-track a bill to separate the U.S. Copyright Office from the Library of Congress, a coalition of consumer rights, industry, open internet and library groups has again sent a letter to the House Committee on Administration urging it to consider the bill on the regular timeline to avoid “unintended consequences.” A full committee markup of the bill is scheduled for tomorrow, March 18,