Posts Tagged: "patent portfolio"

The patent portfolio discloses systems and methods involving a secure credit card with onboard biometric fingerprint capabilities, RFID, and display that can be powered either by ambient light, backlight from a point-of-sale terminal or mobile device, RFID coupling, smart IC contact, or battery. Card information is transmitted to the terminal and receives a secure validation code after which some combination of a card validation and/or biometric-based user validation code are generated and transmitted back to the point of validation. By decoupling authorization of the fingerprint image and the user’s personal information, transmission and data vulnerabilities within the existing payment card system are addressed while consumer behavior remains unchanged.

To a large extent the meaning of the term depends on your viewpoint, but for a patent owner patent quality is all about value. Indeed, from the patent owner’s perspective it is virtually impossible to divorce patent quality from patent value. This should hardly be surprising. A patent that is guaranteed to have only valid patent claims but which is extraordinarily narrow may be a quality patent in the eyes of some, but commercially useful it will not be. Thus, from the standpoint of a patent owner patent quality must necessarily be a function of value.

Typically in our experience only about 3% to 5% of a patent portfolio consists of “star patents.” These are the patents that are demonstrably valuable because they claim technology that is commercially useful today or in a very near future market. Finding this small percentage of good patents is the name of the game. That’s why until very recently the prevailing strategy for many companies was “the more the merrier” with a strategy that focused more on quantity. Companies filed as many applications as they could, fueled by the belief that they would ultimately hit pay dirt with a percentage of the resulting patents generating value.

Last week I wrote about adopting a patent strategy in order to lay the foundation for success. What the article did not touch upon, however, is how you can use procedural mechanisms available at the Patent Office to expand your patent into a patent portfolio, or how to correct unforeseen problems with your patent (or portfolio) that may needlessly compromise…

If patents are so bad and Google has to spend so much money lobbying to weaken the patent system, why is the company simultaneously buying patents and racing to quickly patent their own original innovation? There seems to be a disconnect between what Google says and what they do. Could it be possible that Google has taken such strong anti-patent positions in an attempt to drive down the market for software patents so they can continue to collect patents at steep discount? That would be quite troubling, but there is no question that as Google rhetoric against the patent system has increased so to has their taste for patents

There seems to be a popular belief that the market for patents is dead, but if you look at recent transactions through Q1 of 2015, there are at least some signs that the patent marketplace is becoming more active. There have been a number of high profile acquisitions in the pharmaceutical space over the last four months, and last week Sony acquired OnLive’s patent portfolio. Earlier today Akamai Technologies, Inc. announced that acquired Octoshape, which will give Akamai access to Octoshape technologies that optimize the quality of video streams for over-the-top content and to enable Internet Protocol television solutions.

They use early IPOs as an alternative to traditional venture funding. But one of the things that the investors place a huge importance on is a very sophisticated, robust patent operation. So whereas it used to be you’d have a new company and it could take years even to get some sort of sophistication, we’re now doing it on day one. And the results have been great to see. Over the last few months we have filed close to a hundred patent applications for these entities. We’re able to do that because we have been able to negotiate favorable deals with the law firms we use and we can pass that on to the clients. So our goal is to really be creating companies and crafting their portfolios from day one. Essentially, my partner and I work to insource a very sophisticated patent operation for a company that ordinarily wouldn’t have had that capability.

David Morland, a partner with 3LP Advisors, moderated the first panel. He lead off the segment by pointing out that in the United States patents are being both applied for and issued in record numbers year after year. He also started the substance of the program today by pointing out that the people who own patents in the United States do not seem to believe that the asset class has been devalued. “Maintenance fee payment rates have raised, particularly with respect to the twelve-year payment, which suggests that those who own the assets do not think they are diminishing in value,” Morland explained.