Foundation of investment grade patents is serious due diligence. Getting solid, investment-grade patents is less about finding the gem as much as removing the dirt so that there are more possible gems in the portfolio. We do not know which patent will ultimately be gem, but we can dramatically increase our chances byremoving the ones… Read more »
Patent Funding: Better Patents from BlueIron
Patent Funding: How BlueIron Gives You Better Patent Quality One of the biggest ironies is that your patent attorney cannot give you good advice. But patent funding changes that. Patent attorneys are bound by the attorney/client privilege, which is a hallmark of our legal system. But it has some unintended consequences. One of which is… Read more »
How to Make Your Patent Strong Against Inter Partes Reexam
Strengthen your patent against Inter Partes Reexam One of the easiest ways for infringers to challenge an issued patent is through the Inter Partes Reexam process, commonly known as IPR. To successfully challenge a patent, someone has to produce a prior art document that would have changed the examiner’s mind. This is known as raising… Read more »
BlueIron’s Patent Rating Checklist
A Patent Checklist to find out: How good is your invention? The spreadsheet contains many of the parameters discussed in BlueIron’s blog posts on patent due diligence. Please let us know if you have any suggestions/comments to make the spreadsheet a better tool. You are free to use this however you like, and please feel… Read more »
Financing Patents for a pre-Angel or pre-Seed Startup
Getting a patent before funding is a “chicken and egg” problem that BlueIronIP can solve. As a budding entrepreneur, you need patent protection before talking about your ideas – but you need to talk about your ideas to raise money. At the pre-Angel or pre-seed stage, a company typically has very little capital, so BlueIronIP… Read more »
What is the cost of a cheap patent?
What is the cost of a cheap patent? It turns out to be very expensive. Some startup companies do not want to spend much money on patents, so they get the lowest cost provider for IP services. The result: a cheap patent. A cheap patent that might not have the proper claim scope to protect… Read more »
Patent Rejection – What it takes to get a patent issued
Your patent will typically be rejected by the examiner. Do not worry. The back-and-forth process between the examiner and applicant is a necessary part of getting a strong patent allowed. We want the examiner to fully understand the invention and do a competent job of searching. If the examiner does a poor job, your patent… Read more »
Considering Constraints When Evaluating Patentable Ideas
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Every invention has a set of constraints, and it is imperative to uncover and evaluate them when considering patenting. This applies to an inventor or business manager who is trying to ferret out ideas contained in a new product as well as the… Read more »
A good patent is easy to read
A good patent is easy to read. If you can’t understand your patent application, neither can the patent examiner. Many people tell me that they did not understand their patent application because their attorney used “legalese”. Some even joke that it was so dense that they did not even know if their invention was in… Read more »
What does a good patent application look like?
Good patents are NOT written in “legalese”. I had a telephone interview with a patent examiner a while ago and in the course of the interview, the examiner said that he really liked my patent application because I did not try to hide the ball with the invention. I was originally taught to write patent… Read more »