Legal IQ has  launched a new white paper on Intellectual Property (IP) Portfolio Management Trends and Success Factors 2012, which reviews the recent challenges and changes in IP.  It draws upon the insight of leading legal professionals from across the world, and across Patents and Trademarks. They share how they view the future and plan […]

A survey by inovia on “US IP Trends: Global Patent Protection in 2010” show that IP budgets may now be stabilizing for 2010.  In a recent study of 150+ small to medium-sized US businesses, 72% of corporate patent professionals surveyed expect to maintain or increase their foreign patent filings in 2010, as compared to 2009. […]

As a direct consequence of overruling the affirmative duty of due care to avoid infringement upon learning of a patent, the Federal Circuit expressly instructed in Seagate that “there is no affirmative obligation to obtain [an] opinion of counsel.”  In re Seagate Technology, 497 F.3d 1360, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (en banc), cert. denied, 128 […]

Commentators like me frequently rail against what we view as the often unnecessarily high cost of obtaining patent protection. In truth, many patents are overpriced and provide questionable business value to their clients. Over-priced patents do not form the basis of this article, however. Instead, this is about the opposite phenomenon, i.e., under-priced patents. Specifically, […]

Conducting an IP audit is a way for a firm to assess the nature and value of its intellectual property assets. Such assessments may be critical and more commonplace in certain industries, such as IT and pharmaceuticals.  However, in the wake of legislative changes and the current economic downturn, the potential value in conducting an […]

Patents Go International International patent filings under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) grew by 2.4% in 2008, to nearly 164,000 1 applications. While the rate of growth was modest, as compared to an average 9.3% rate of growth in the previous three years, the total number of applications for 2008 represents the highest number of […]

Patents, trade secrets and confidentiality agreements are mere words on paper to the scientist, engineer or executive intent on deception and theft. And if you have outsourced your research and development efforts overseas to countries with unenforced intellectual property laws and cultural norms that ignore individual property rights, then the intent to deceive and thieve […]