Advanced Patent Portfolio Benchmarking and Valuation
Posted by Marius on October 18, 2009
Mathematics, a programming environment and a powerful computer: all you need to do some sophisticated mathematical modeling of patent portfolios, to benchmark your patent program, to select a patent portfolio you want to acquire, or to help compute the expected value of gain or of loss in patent litigation.
I am a fan of advanced mathematics [...]
If You Had A General Counsel on Your Staff, She Would Say… (Part 1)
Posted by Marius on October 3, 2009
So you have lots of legal questions on a regular basis in your company, but you don’t have a general counsel yet. That’s OK. I have compiled a number of questions that come up more often for smaller companies, and here are some suggestions on how to address them. A number of companies have asked [...]
Startup Companies and Proactive Intellectual Property Due Diligence
Posted by Marius on July 9, 2008
You are part of the management team for a startup. During a meeting discussing company exit strategies or a financial investment event, somebody asks, “Should we do any proactive IP due diligence?”
It depends. Overall, having seen a variety of startups going through Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) or acquisition events and experiencing unexpected IP issues at [...]
Game Theory Analysis of Patent Litigation
Posted by Marius on May 11, 2008
From time to time, I studied patent litigation cases that involved progressively escalating patent assertions and cross-assertions and wondered about the optimal strategy regarding the escalation or containment of litigation. In some cases, it was easy to see that ignoring the secondary aspects of litigation (e.g., emotional and psychological factors, strategies regarding deterrence of future [...]
Patent Litigation, Decisions and Expected Values
Posted by Marius on March 16, 2008
Let’s talk about patent infringement litigation. OK, don’t cringe, it is just a hypothetical exercise!
Let’s pretend that we just went through a patent infringement lawsuit, where we were sued for infringing a portfolio of patents. Our company could be selling medical equipment, wireless end-user devices, infrastructure systems, chip-level components, or any other product. The [...]
IP Indemnification: Different Risk Profiles for Materials and Equipment Vendors
Posted by Marius on March 9, 2008
In a previous post, I discussed a few general issues relating to IP Indemnification in commercial transactions involving the sale of goods, such as equipment and materials. In this post, I am going to dive deeper in the topic of IP indemnification and I will explore in more detail the differences in the risk profiles [...]
International Patent Exhaustion and the Global Semiconductor Industry
Posted by Marius on March 2, 2008
A 2004 report by the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF) discussed the effects that globalization is having on the U.S. semiconductor industry. The report noted that the U.S. semiconductor industry is now facing the challenge of reacting to an information age becoming more uncertain and more globalized. The report identified a typical example [...]
Large Company Patent Portfolio Costs
Posted by Marius on February 24, 2008
In a previous post, I was arguing that the trend towards cheaper patent prosecution costs has altered the IP balance between smaller companies and larger companies in the favor of the former. But if small companies have benefited more that larger companies from the decrease in patent prosecution costs, this is an ironic outcome given [...]
Optimal Allocation of Risk in IP Indemnification Negotiations
Posted by Marius on February 17, 2008
Intellectual property indemnification is a fundamental issue arising at each level of the semiconductor commercial chain. From an economic standpoint, IP indemnification is a mechanism for direct allocation of risk between the transacting parties. IP indemnification should be considered carefully in most transactions involving the sale of goods or services, or licensing of technology. Each [...]
Cheaper Patents: Have They Altered the Relative Balance for Semiconductor Companies?
Posted by Marius on January 20, 2008
An article titled “The New (Improved) Gilded Age” in the December 22, 2007 issue of the Economist argues that the general commoditization of prices has decreased the discrepancy between rich and poor in industrialized countries. As the author puts it, “This is not to deny that income inequality is rising: it is. . . . [...]