Patent Strategy

Questions for Entrepreneurs: Are You The Right Person?

Entrepreneurs and inventors have eternal optimism, which is contagious. They are animated, motivated, and have relentless energy when they are striving to their goals. They can be immensely fun (and frustrating) to be around. But are the goals the right goals for them? I have countless video calls with entrepreneurs who are trying to ‘change…

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Examples of Undetectable Inventions

This past week, I looked at a couple companies and their IP. Both had an interesting but fundamental problem that made their IP worthless. We will talk about one of them in this post. I have a great technology – does anyone care? There are lots of companies with various air filtration/disinfectant patents. These are…

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How IP-Backed Loans Work

Your intellectual property is usually the hardest-fought asset you have. Intellectual property, and particularly patents, are often the most valuable intangible assets your company owns. There are several ways to use your IP in finance, and the most straightforward is to borrow against your company’s IP assets. This form of intellectual property financing is becoming…

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The USPTO Claims it Wants to Ensure ‘Robust and Reliable’ Patents – But Its Questions Imply Another Assault on Patent Owners

All of the suggested changes to continuation practices are extraordinary in their breadth and reach, and place severe and staggering restrictions on an Applicant’s ability to craft meaningful and useful claims. Last October, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a Request for Comments on USPTO Initiatives To Ensure the Robustness and Reliability…

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USPTO Request for Comment Docket No. PTO-P-2022-0025

The USPTO had a “Request for Comments on USPTO Initiatives To Ensure the Robustness and Reliability of Patent Rights.” I had the opportunity to draft the response for the Angel Capital Association, which you can access here. An abridged copy of my comments were also published by IPWatchDog.com, which are reproduced here: The USPTO Claims…

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The Importance of Patent Searches

The easiest way to make your patent more valuable: do a patent search. One of the first things everyone sees, including me as I start a patent valuation analysis, is the list of references on the front page of your patent. There are two kinds of references on the front page: those with stars and…

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Patents on Vision vs Patents on Inventions

There is a big difference between an entrepreneur’s vision and the entrepreneur’s inventions.  Often the entrepreneur (and their investors) confuse the two. Entrepreneurs are fond of having big, bold visions of the future.  A future of self-driving cars or virtual reality universes or DNA-based pharmaceuticals that fix every medical problem or hyperloop transport or whatever. …

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