Patent Strategy

Calling yourself an “Expert”

I avoid anyone who calls themselves an “expert” in anything. I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue, than why I have one. – Cato the Elder, from Plutarch’s Lives I run into countless entrepreneurs and inventors, and many of them like to brand themselves as “expert” or, worse yet, “visionary.”…

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Patents Age Like Fine Wine

Patents reach peak valuation around year 12. Why is that? We like to think about patents as call options on technology. With a call option, you have the opportunity, but not the obligation, to cash in the option before it expires. A patent operates in a similar way. You have the opportunity, but not the…

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Trading on the Differences

Uncertainty is not a Bad Thing, it is Opportunity. Every time you see a news story or read a blog about a topic you know very well, it is amazing that the stories have lots of factual problems. This is not a problem, it is opportunity. For many years, I have been offended by how…

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IP Valuation in a Regulatory Framework

When an invention requires regulatory approval, a patent is a secondary element of intellectual property protection. Regulatory requirements trump patents as the primary form of protection or moat against a business. Medical devices and pharmaceutical inventions operate within a regulatory framework: the Food and Drug Administration.  The moat for competitors is to first overcome the…

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Pitching Investors is Not “One-and-Done”

Spend some time “riding the bus” in the Minors before getting to the Big Leagues. I have the enviable position of seeing lots of inventors who bootstrapped their companies along before they take outside investment (if they take any outside investment at all). This is – without question – the single best way to build…

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Registration Numbers

Due diligence in patents requires looking at the patent attorney. When I review patent applications, I always download the full prosecution history of the patent from the USPTO. The prosecution history is the formal, legal record of the back-and-forth between the applicant and the Patent Office, and includes all the papers as originally filed, as…

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Waiting Room Inventors

“Moonshots” and Abdicating Responsibility as an Angel Investor. A friend who is an angel investor asked my opinion on a company. I did not like it for a number of reasons, not the least of which was their poor IP strategy. The real reason why I didn’t like the company was because the inventor was…

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Technology is always about firing someone.

The value proposition of “technology” is usually that an employer can fire someone. It is always about doing more work with fewer people. This typically has a short term advantage for a business owner, but typically create poorer experiences for their end users over the long run. Consider a banker, who may approve or disapprove…

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