Patent Portfolio Review

At the start of the Patent Portfolio Optimisation process it is essential to be able to answer the question: What do we really have in our patent portfolio?  Many of today’s global innovators and technology based corporations have built up extensive patent portfolios through both organic and inorganic growth.  Unless the portfolio has been carefully managed over time it is easy to arrive at a situation where patent assets are poorly documented and maintained.  Often the links between a corporation’s product and patent portfolios is at best weak and in extreme cases diverging, particularly where the patent portfolio has grown inorganically through mergers and acquisitions.

In addition to the need for corporations to align their patent assets with their product portfolio is the need to ensure that patent assets also are aligned with the corporation’s strategic plans and direction.  Even when research and development activity is focussed in such a way to support new strategic initiatives, the existing patent portfolio is not reviewed or analysed to determine whether it is correctly optimised and more importantly fully exploited.  Over time valuable patent assets can be “lost” in the complexity of the wider portfolio or underperforming non aligned assets are either maintained unnecessarily or worse still their true value through sale or licensing is never realised.

The first stage in optimising a patent portfolio for such corporations is a detailed Patent Portfolio review.  There are three important sub stages in performing such a review and depending on the individual situation one or all may be required before a more detailed analysis of the portfolio can take place.

A Patent Portfolio Audit

As previously mentioned many corporations have a less than perfect understanding of all of their patent assets, particularly where growth in the company and portfolio has been due to mergers and acquisitions.  At a departmental or business unit level whilst their maybe a detailed understanding of patent assets held, valuable patent assets in the wider corporation may be invisible.  A detailed patent portfolio audit can be used to address this situation and ensure there is a better understanding of the total portfolio contents.

Portfolio Categorisation Analysis

Once the full extent of a patent portfolio is understood and documented the next stage is to categorise the portfolio to understand how these valuable assets are spread across technology domains.  The portfolio categorisation can also be used to identify the patent age profile for individual technology domains.  Such a categorisation exercise looks beyond the patent classification system to understand how patents are categorised in terms of real world products and technologies.

Patent Title and Data Review

Once the portfolio is fully documented and understood internally the next key step is to ensure that patent data is correctly structured and entered across the many jurisdictions around the world.  This not only includes the complex data relating to patent dates but also extends to ensuring patent asset title is correctly recorded and registered globally.  CPA Global’s Data Verification and IP Recordals services are designed to ensure your portfolio is correctly recorded in all respects.  At this stage in the Portfolio Optimisation process it is important to ensure all patents are correctly recorded particularly when it is not fully understood where the real value lies.

Whichever elements of the Patent Portfolio Review stage are required CPA Global has an extensive range of experience and services to help corporations better understand and record the full extent of their patent portfolios.  An accurate understanding of the full extent of patent assets is required before it is possible to move on and answer the question:  Where is the value in our patent portfolio?