Patent Strategy
BlueIron Skewers Traditional Patent Attorney Role with Unique Investment Model
BlueIron IP skewers traditional patent attorney role with unique investment model FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Jan 18, 2016 LOVELAND – Protecting a startup’s intellectual property is one of the most important milestones for any new tech-based business and one of the biggest factors for success, but conventional patent attorneys can make it a costly and confusing…
Read MorePatent 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 MoreHow to Get a Good Patent
How to Get a Good Patent How to get a good patent? It is easy to get a worthless patent, but quite hard to file a good one. A good patent starts with a good invention. The invention should have a high value if the invention were to be licensed or sold to competitors in…
Read MorePatents Need to Make Business Sense
Patents can be part of an overall business strategy, but they need to make business sense. In our business of investing and financing patent portfolios, we can only invest in patents that have real commercial value. From the startup’s perspective, there are several ways that a patent can have value. Merely having a patent pending…
Read MorePatents As Investments
BlueIron treats patents as investments. But we don’t invest in everything. We do not invest in technologies where we don’t think there is a market for the patents alone. BlueIron treats client’s patents like collateral for loans. Our investment is protected only by the value that the patents would have on the open market, if…
Read MoreInventions Where BlueIron Will NOT Invest
There are some inventions where BlueIron will NOT invest. I see an obnoxious number of inventions and patents from startups. Almost all of them are not good candidates for us to invest. It is heartbreaking to say “no” to inventors where the invention does not seem to be ‘big’ enough to be a saleable, stand-alone…
Read MoreInvestment Grade Patents Start with a Solid Foundation
An investment-grade patent starts with a solid foundation. Most patents are worthless, and getting a good patent 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…
Read MorePatents are Similar to Stock Market Options
Patents are an inherently risky investment and have lots of similarities to options trading. This is because they have value only when the market comes to them. At the time you purchase an option – and at the time you create a patent – you must place a bet on where the market will go.…
Read MoreHow to Find a Good Patent Attorney
How to find a good patent attorney: find two attorneys, and have each one evaluate the other attorney’s work. Here is a simple technique to find a good patent attorney: start with at least *two* candidates. Ask each attorney to give you a sample of their work, and take the sample to the other attorney.…
Read MoreHow 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…
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