Working with Attorneys
Why Patent Competence Is a CEO’s Responsibility
Why outsourcing it to a patent attorney is one of the most common — and expensive — mistakes founders make There’s a simple test for whether a patent actually matters: Did it change your competitor’s behavior? If the answer is no, then whatever you have is not protection. It may be a patent in the…
Read MoreAre Patents Still Relevant in the Age of AI?
The cost to build software is collapsing. Not slowly. Not incrementally. It’s collapsing fast enough that entire assumptions about startups, competition, and defensibility no longer hold. AI has changed the economics of software development in two fundamental ways. First, it has reduced the time required to build functional products. Second, it has reduced the number…
Read MoreStolen Valor: How Sleazy Patent Attorneys Abuse Inventorship
For an innovator, being named as an inventor on a patent is the crowning achievement of a career. Being named an inventor says that the person has contributed something to humanity that has never existed, and that accomplishment is memorialized forever in the patent database. Being an inventor is huge. But what happens when the…
Read MoreAI-Assisted Patent Search Tools Exacerbate Inventor Biases
AI chat tools have two problems: over-simplification and hallucination. These two problems mimic inventor’s biases when doing patent searches, leading to bad results. Inventors and entrepreneurs might love the idea of using an AI‑powered search tool to check “Did I do something new?” fast and cheap. It sounds smart. It sounds responsible. I am a…
Read MoreYour Patent Attorney Is NOT Giving Business Advice
Are you getting a list of options or a strategy that aligns with your business? Is that “strategy” more tailored to the Law Firm’s billing or your success? Most inventors think that hiring a patent attorney[1] means they’re protected. That’s a mistake. Patent attorneys are trained to give you every possible option. Want a provisional?…
Read MoreBad Advice – Non-publication Requests for Patents
How incompetent patent attorneys hide their work product from public view. Occasionally, I run into patents where the patent attorney talks the client into a non-publication request. This is always a bad thing. Non-publication requests keep your patent secret until the patent has been examined. The patent is confidential throughout the examination process, and only…
Read MoreGullible Angel Investors and Provisional Patent Applications
Last time, we discussed the provisional patent application hoax perpetuated by patent attorneys. In this post, we look at the scam from the inventor/entrepreneur side. Many so-called inventors/entrepreneurs like to file their own provisional patent applications, then shop these to gullible angel investors, hoping that the angel investors will bite. The “inventor” is hoping that…
Read MoreThe Provisional Patent Hoax
One of the greatest hoaxes in our industry is the notion that provisional patent applications are a good thing. They are not. I am always amazed how some hoaxes are told over and over to the point where people actually believe them. When they find out that the hoax was not true, their confidence is…
Read MoreTrading 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…
Read MoreIP 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[1] 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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