Dear IP Counsel, (and of course, I don’t mean you; the others)
Dear IP Counsel,
(and of course, I don’t mean you; just those others…)
February 29th 2020 (A special Leap-day post from our founder Doris !!!)….Let me tell you about my boat, a Mustang Runabout. They say, the two happiest days in the life of a boat owner, are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. In between, rather than growing the value by creating experiences and joy, one spends time and money on storage, upkeep and refueling. I second that, albeit, my boat is so run down, it’s gotten hard to sell. It’s kind of abandoned in my in-law’s driveway.
I feel, it’s somewhat similar with patents, and many organsiations have created KPIs to exacerbate the glory of the obtaining and the abandoning. We measure innovation by the number of patents we file. We measure Patent Managers on the number of patents they manage to cull each year. Rather than looking to incentivise return on investment, monetisation and patent value.
Not sure about your department, but the trend over the last decade has been to divest in aspects that make IP departments valuable to the rest of the organisation and other stakeholders, and instead focus time and money on ‘storage, upkeep and refueling’.
I am taking a stab in the dark here, but Digital Transformation or not, am I right to assume that 70-80% of your IP expenditure goes towards patent prosecution, patent management and patent renewal? And only 20-30% you spend on patent monetisation and value creation? Oh, only 10%, you say?
Why is that? Maybe it’s the easiest place to cut costs? Patent Management software, renewal fees from attorneys, service providers and PTOs, all represent recurring costs which you might find hard to influence or negotiate. I get it. Hence, if the budget demands it, and the budget rarely gives you more to spend, the red pen tends to reduce or kill the following. Year by year, by year.
IP budget - red pen
Reduce the number of patent analysts and research staff, focusing remaining resources on reactive invalidations or other hot emergencies; or outsource altogether, make it demand driven… do I have demand? I hate to break the news, but companies that monetise IP well, and enjoy the highest return per patent over it’s life time, have large search and analytics teams. Very large. Very, very large. Think 200-300 people. Large, I know. One may speculate they have an excellent understanding of their patent portfolio and the landscape they operate in…
Reduce or abate conference attendance for analyst/search staff, where they had the opportunity to learn about new technologies, approaches and even new databases. You might be sick of hearing big data and the like, same here, but indeed, in recent years there’s been a Cambrian Explosion in patent analytics and search approaches with AI and machine learning. Wouldn’t you want your staff to be able to distinguish between vendors who do AI only in their Powerpoint presentations, and those that apply machine learning that helps you de-risk and create value across your portfolio?
Reduce the number of seats for subscriptions to patent search and analytics databases, or databases altogether. “What!” You may have exclaimed a few years ago “We pay for three different search tools! Surely, one is enough. Right?” Well, if you called a plumber to fix your bathroom and they arrived with only one spanner, you would question if they ever learned their trade. It’s the same with search and analytics databases. Different approaches in collecting, processing and interrogating data, invariably will deliver different results. One should hope the Venn diagram of tools has a big overlap, but…. Sorry, now I have you worried, that the database you unsubscribed, or didn’t know about, would have harbored the killer patents in their Venn. The one that would have saved your day, the millions, your budget.
Exit patent management staff, enter the golden age of Digital Transformation. Let’s automate this stuff! All new, renew, renew! Now, you would never do this, but I know of this research organisation who just let go of their patent managers. Among other things their job was to get a feel for what they actually owned in their patent portfolio, assess the value of patents, and to decide if to renew, out-license or abandon the patent. And while filing patents helps hitting the KPIs, so does culling the portfolio. So, in lieu of expertise, let’s just kill all patents where the researchers have left. After all, we don’t know what it is, and they are not here to complain. Reminds you of that time you abandoned that nanotech patent, that ended up a precursor for fuel efficiency, and somebody else making the money? Yeah, agree, those two industries converging, hmm, who would have thought?
“Utilizing a mix of complementary search techniques is a key to our success in servicing the needs of our clients.... For us, Ambercite is mission critical by providing us with a state of the art citation based search tool that is best in class.”
The bottom line is, it’s hard to achieve top line growth if you chase cost reductions, specifically as they pertain to patent analytics and search. That’s the smart side of IP that will actually make you money. Having now worked across the IP industry in different capacities, I’m astounded that the vast expenditures still go to fairly commoditised, mundane IP administration, complex as it may be. Goes without saying, on the service side most revenue is made from volumes and annuities, rather than value-add tools. And if there’s less investment into value-add solutions, there will be less innovation, progress and market diversity. Which in turn does diminish the value you could get from your IP portfolio. A downward spiral. I know.
I must sign off now. But let me take you out on my boat soon!
Best,
Doris
P.S. Public Service Announcement: I’m being facetious. My recommendations are genuine though. Don’t try save money in the wrong areas. Deploy an arsenal of tools, and remember:
No search is complete without Ambercite.
Arrange an appointment for a demo and a free trial account.
What do boats and patents have in common?