Step one: ninety days. Decisions ready for action.
What the company owns, what it protects, what it costs, and where to invest next — established from the record, with an onsite visit, a decision meeting at day 60, and a budgeted twelve-month plan at day 90.
Is the portfolio strong, or just expensive?
Six questions, answered from the record rather than from opinion.
What the company owns
A verified inventory of every U.S. patent and application the company holds, across every related entity. Status, recorded ownership, family relationships, and deadlines are reconciled against counsel’s docket.
What the patents protect
Every family’s commercial purpose set against your products and markets. The priority patents receive a detailed review of the specification, the independent claims, and the prosecution record.
How the claims hold up
The independent claims that matter most screened against prior art. A first-pass screen is reported as a first-pass screen, with the references found and the recommended next step.
Where competitors stand
Your competitors and their patent families screened against your products. Claim-to-product worksheets show every limitation, the evidence for it, and the evidence still missing.
What outside counsel delivers
Your outside firms. Their billing read against the work delivered, with response costs, selected invoices, and observable relationships summarized for your decision.
Where the next dollar goes
Your invention backlog triaged, and the strongest concepts developed. Spending to continue, stop, defer, or move, with the assumptions behind each number visible.
How the ninety days run.
Five stages, two decision meetings, and a weekly rhythm between them.
Days 1–15 · Intake and reconciliation.
We gather the docket, prosecution records, agreements, product evidence, and billing. The portfolio is frozen at day 15. Any deadline or ownership issue found along the way goes to responsible counsel the same week.
A verified inventory and an action list with owners.
Early in the engagement · Onsite visit.
A day with executives, product leaders, and inventors, with interviews as the work needs them. We watch the product work and learn how filing decisions move through the company.
Product and technology priorities confirmed, and the priority patents selected with you.
Days 10–60 · The assessment.
Patent reviews, claim screens, product worksheets, ownership checks, counsel and billing review, and invention triage run in parallel.
Findings ready for decisions, each stating its evidence and its limits.
Day 60 · The decision meeting.
Management receives the consolidated findings and decides: which assets merit investment, what spending changes, what to ask of counsel, and which opportunities deserve a closer look.
A decision record with actions, budgets, owners, and deadlines for days 61–90.
Days 61–90 · The plan and the handoff.
Approved priorities become a budgeted twelve-month plan. The Engagement Record carries every decision, open action, and supporting report forward, with a quarterly review agenda.
An executive assessment, a twelve-month plan, and a record the company keeps. The Chief IP Officer engagement continues from that plan.
Fixed fee. Urgent matters are handled when they surface, not held for a meeting.
What you hold.
Conclusions the evidence supports, and a plain account of the ones it does not.
An assessment you can read as a business document.
One integrated assessment of the portfolio, linked to the supporting reports. Findings are separated from hypotheses, and each shows how much evidence stands behind it.
Decisions with owners and budgets.
The day-60 decisions, recorded: what continues, what stops, what is deferred, and who is responsible for each.
A clear view of outside counsel.
What each firm delivers, what it costs, and what to ask of it next. Counsel stays in place. The questions change.
A twelve-month plan with a budget.
Filings, continuations, trade-secret choices, and investigations, each tied to a business purpose and a decision gate.
What it covers.
What the assessment covers, and what stays with your counsel. The ongoing Chief IP Officer engagement picks up from the day-90 plan.
- One operating business and its full U.S. patent portfolio.
- Your products, your markets, and your competitors.
- Detailed reviews of the priority patents and first-pass screens of the claims that matter most.
- Your outside firms and their billing.
- An onsite visit, interviews, weekly contact, and decision meetings at day 60 and day 90.
- Legal opinions on infringement, validity, or title. These remain with your counsel.
- Foreign-law analysis, filings, prosecution responses, and negotiations.
- Confirmation searches, formal claim charts for every competitor, and obviousness analysis.
- Financing readiness, enforcement economics, and counsel transitions, which are available when your objectives call for them.
A thirty-minute call. See whether ninety days fits.
Enough to know whether the scope matches your portfolio. If it does not, we will say so on the same call.