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They say “Get More Patents” but they really mean something else
They want leverage over competitors. Protection for revenue streams. A seat at the table in joint ventures and standards bodies. Licensing income from technology the market has decided to adopt. “Get more patents” is how that comes out. The instinct is right. What they’re really asking for is powerful. The roadmap to get there is…
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Your Inventor Loves Your Patent Attorney. That Is the Problem.
The bond that makes the disclosure meeting work is the same bond that makes quality invisible. Your lead engineer just came back from a meeting with your patent attorney. They are glowing. The attorney “really got it.” The attorney asked the right questions, followed the logic, saw the connections. The engineer has never felt so…
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Your Patent Attorney Makes More Money When the Patent Application Is Bad
The worse the initial filing, the more they bill to fix it. And nobody told you that up front. You got a quote for a patent application. Maybe $8,000. Maybe $12,000. It seemed reasonable. The attorney was responsive, explained the process, and gave you a timeline. You approved it. The application was filed. Then the…
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The Highest Quality Patent Work at the Lowest Cost
The best patent attorneys in the country do not work at the biggest firms. They left. There is a class of patent attorney you have never been introduced to. They have fifteen years of experience. They have written hundreds of patent applications. They have prosecuted cases through the toughest art units at the USPTO and…
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Stop Patenting Your Invention. Start Patenting Your Competitor’s Product.
You spent $50,000 describing what you built. Your competitor read it, built something different, and kept competing. You filed a patent on your product. The claims describe exactly what you built — your architecture, your process, your implementation. The patent issued. You celebrated. Then your competitor launched. Same feature. Same customer benefit. Different implementation. Your…
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Your CTO Should Never Own Your Patent Strategy
When the CTO owns IP, you get more patents, not better patents. And that is the opposite of what matters. The most common pattern: the CEO delegates patent decisions to the CTO. The CTO talks to the patent attorney. It seems natural — the CTO understands the technology, speaks the attorney’s language, and cares about…
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Just Do Your Job
Your patent attorney is a skilled professional. They spent years learning patent law. They passed the patent bar. They have written hundreds of applications and prosecuted thousands of office actions. And they will not make a decision without your permission. Every office action response. Every continuation decision. Every claim amendment. Every maintenance fee. Presented to…
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Micromanaging Your Patent Attorney Destroys the Relationship
Your patent attorney will not make a decision without your permission. Every office action, every claim amendment, every continuation — presented as a list of options with a deadline. So you take over. You read the office actions yourself. You research prosecution strategy. You learn the vocabulary — restriction requirements, pre-appeal conference requests, examiner interviews,…
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Inter Partes Review Was Supposed to Help Independent Inventors — And It Did
Not Accepting Responsibility, Then Pointing The Finger Independent inventors have spent more than a decade blaming inter partes review (IPR) for their inability to enforce patents, monetize inventions, or survive litigation against larger companies. (There was a fundamental flaw in the IPR system that was abused repeatedly – more on that below.) They point to…