Lawyers, engineers and entrepreneurs respectively focus on associated legal issues, newly disclosed advancements in technologies and potential business opportunities. Although these are all important factors within patenting, limiting vision within a single viewpoint is detrimental to the patent process and the strength of the final issued patent

A typical patent is handled by multiple professionals along a “patent chain”, these include inventors; R&D staff; legal staff including: lawyers, patent attorneys and agents, patent engineers and foreign associates; and patent examiners, who are charged along various acts in the chain being: R&D ® patent application ® patent issuance ® infringement lawsuit and/or licensing negotiation. Importantly, misunderstanding, miscommunication or ignorance of another’s role weakens the patent or patent portfolio of an entity, which directly reduces the value of the same.

Once an innovation has been developed, a company must invest significant resources in applying for relevant patents, and this may not always make economic sense, i.e., will the protection offered by a patent offer increased revenues to cover the cost of application and maintenance thereof? This question in itself must be seen from a broader perspective of the company’s: value, patent portfolio, marketing aims, market reputation, licensing and cross-licensing agreements and the like. Without sound consideration of the goal, a correct decision on attaining a patent cannot be made. Therefore, the correct decision of pursuing a patent is dependent on a series of factors dependent on the situation of that company. To illustrate how the information and specialization of all three groups of professionals is required below is a non-exhaustive list of some factors that should be frequently considered during the innovative development.

Strategic Arrangement

Use patents as tools or mediums and maximize the utilization of all kinds of enterprise resources. Make appropriate future plans and feasible steps. Be limited neither to whether or not to apply for patents nor to achieving as many patents as possible.

Knowledge Management

Living in the era of knowledge economy, a company has to systematically manage its internal knowledge along with the external information. External information includes patents, new technologies, laws, markets and industry trends. To analyze and to discover the truth behind the information can greatly help to do the right things and achieve your strategic goals.

Flexible combination of resources

To maximize the synergetic profits brought by patents and other IPs, one should extend the usage of patents on product research, trends of markets and technologies, infringement determination, innovative designs around, licensing negotiation, technology transfer and trading, company investment, merger and acquisition, etc.

Technology evaluation and trading

Based on the variety of business goals, patented technologies usually need to be quantitatively and qualitatively evaluated. Besides reasonable assumptions and formulas within all the three aspects mentioned above, the negotiation under a market mechanism or “rule of thumb” is often the key to a final deal.

Control of “brain flow”

People are substantial tools to generate, distribute, analyze and utilize intellectual properties. In addition to top R&D staff, patent agents and professional managers, a company can benefit from experts with versatile or special backgrounds. Especially, they can help to integrate various resources and bring in new ideas. Hence, how to keep these elites as employees is very crucial to the future of an organization.

By ensuring correct communication and understanding across these varied specializations, the company can maximize its patent and staff efficiency to cater for its needs.