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Mike McLean
Chief Executive Officer
Innovation Asset Collective
Mike McLean is a recognized leader in the IP and patent strategy market. He currently serves as Chief Executive Officer for the Innovation Asset Collective, a not-for-profit organization helping Canadian data-driven clean tech companies maximize the value of their intangible assets.
For more than 20 years Mike has worked with and lead great teams of engineers, product managers, and patent professionals. His focus has been engaging technology companies to organize, assess and protect their patent portfolios to create business value. He thrives in competitive industries and working on a team to solve difficult problems and improve performance. Mike is a leading voice on IP in Canada and plays a key role in empowering and expanding the Canadian IP ecosystem. He is passionate about promoting the need for robust IP strategies for Canadian industries and investments in patent collective models that increase the freedom to operate for Canadian SMEs.
Prior to joining the Innovation Asset Collective, Mike was senior vice president of IP Services for TechInsights, where he led a group of patent professionals who help technology innovators prove patent value so they can make the most informed, fact based decisions possible and maximize the returns on their investments. Key to this effort is a lifecycle-based approach to the protection, management and utilization of patent rights.
Mike holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering (first-class honors) from Queens University and is a licensed member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario.
Recent Articles by Mike McLean
Strengthening Patent Value Throughout the Patent Prosecution Flow
Patents allow you to protect your inventions, license the use of the inventions of others, and introduce additional revenue streams to your business. Patents also require investments of time and money to maximize their usefulness. By focusing your investment and efforts on optimizing the usability of patents of value, you can improve the validation that your applications read on markets of interest, and that further your portfolio goals, help tune a patent portfolio by developing indication of use (IoU) of some applications regarding products of interest, and early cost savings by avoiding applications with challenges or concerns, use applications as soon as they are granted and improve utilization of filed inventions by identifying continuation opportunities… There are many ways that patent strengthening can improve a portfolio. By focusing on optimizing the quality of patents of value you can achieve maximum ROI from their use, and you can minimize the cost by avoiding lower-value applications as well as their future maintenance.
A Repeatable Approach To Portfolio Monetization
To successfully monetize a patent portfolio, it is incredibly important to identify value within it, and to put in the work to prove to third parties and potential partners that that value exists… With the data-driven part of the mining exercise complete, the appropriate subset of patents can be turned over to the SMEs for evaluation of patent strength and enforceability. SMEs know the technology of a given field, they understand how technology has been implemented across multiple players in a given market, and they can reach a truly informed understanding about whether or not a given patent claim is being used in end product, whether or not that use can be detected, and what issues may be encountered in detection.
