Summary: In this section on portfolio management, the primary use of patents was assumed to be their role in sustaining an advantaged competitive position. In some industries, this is not the case. For companies whose business model is specifically out-licensing, or when a company needs a large and active patent portfolio to influence [...]
Emerging Strategic Portfolio Emerging strategic portfolios are developed to protect new ventures’ and existing business’ ability to exclude others, and sometimes to enhance the ability to attract key development partners. In this situation, it is typically too early to knowledgeably assess a patent or embryonic portfolios’ value to the company. Such patents are [...]
Once the patents at the top of the list of have been selected for pruning, they should be reviewed for their business use by subject matter experts. Such a review corresponds to the columns shown in the first figure above. The reason this step is put off until this point in the process [...]
Unused and Unsuitable Portfolios Pruning is important because over time technology that was originally patented as novel and unique slowly matures. As newer features are introduced by R&D or in-licensed by business development, the older patents hold less and less commercial value. A product feature or manufacturing process that the patent protects slowly [...]
Portfolios for Licensing-Out Using the technology subdomain segmentation first conducted on the company’s portfolio, those supporting and stranded portfolios are quickly evaluated for probability that the licensing-out activities might produce a positive return to the company. Key overall factors evaluated for this purpose are shown in the “Portfolios For Licensing-Out” figure. If the [...]
Chance of FTO Suits The next segmentation of the portfolio is into core & supporting technology portfolios that will be used for freedom to operate (FTO) countersuit negotiations. Not every business environment is filled with honorable competitors. There are times when a company, despite its best efforts, is faced with a lawsuit. The [...]
Patent Portfolio Metrics For art that is segmented into areas in which the core technology portfolio is likely to be used for exclusion of the company’s competitors, the strength of that art is assessed against other art in those specific markets using patent portfolio metrics. In the “Patent Portfolio Metrics” figure areas related [...]
Patent Portfolio Segmentation For an automated process, the overall steps in the above methods are used except that patent portfolio and technology/market comparable patents are both used to segment the company’s patents by category based on the technology/markets they serve and the size of the company’s position in that technology/market segment. An example [...]
Classification of Technologies Another way to classify patents is based on the classifications of technologies that they protect. In the “Classification of Technologies” figure, developed by Neste, the patents are first separated by whether or not they cover existing or pre-commercial products. Then they are further divided by what the ownership arrangement is [...]
Subcategories of Cash Cows Within the desirable Cash Cow portion of the figure, David Lambourne argues that there are four subcategories useful for executives’ decision-making process. Those are shown in the “Subcategories of Cash Cow” figure. In this model the Paper Cows (representing what was traditionally called paper patents), Plastic Cows (which are [...]
You must be logged in to post a comment.