strategy – Intellectual Property Strategy

April 17, 2020April 19, 2020

What is Competitive Advantage?

In a prior post, I explained why the inherent characteristics of intellectual property assets (patents, for example) don’t automatically translate into competitive advantage of a business. Competitive advantage requires more than just having exclusive rights to a technology. In fact, competitive advantage is much, much more than that.

April 14, 2020April 14, 2020

Top 3 Mistakes when starting your Patent Strategy

Speaking with prospective clients this week reminded me of some common, and potentially costly, mistakes that innovators make. These mistakes are the result of preconceptions about patents that can be plain wrong.

Here are 3 of the top misconceptions people have about patents.

April 3, 2020April 20, 2020

Can you explain how your Patents and IP support your Competitive Advantage?

At its core, strategy is all about competitive advantage. Strategy is fundamentally about how to gain and sustain an advantage over direct and indirect competitors. Competitors, of course, include anyone seeking or drawing revenue (or attention) from the same market segments you are pursuing.

So then, why is your IP Strategy so disconnected from competitive advantage?

March 30, 2020

Nine Ways Intellectual Property will be Impacted by COVID-19

Here are some ways I predict the IP landscape will be impacted by the devastating impacts of COVID-19. You’ll notice I only listed eight below–I saved the ninth way for you. What is the other way you think IP will change?

IP Litigation. Litigation inevitably increases after economic downturn. IP litigation will continue or increase as market scarcity increases and, consequently, competition for the same market segment rises.
IP Strategy. Businesses that lack strategic direction will seek strategic counsel and insight. The top priorities of IP owners will be 1) make sure legal teams understand business strategy and objectives, and 2) find ways to qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate, implement, and report on alignment of IP Strategy with business strategy and objectives.

March 20, 2020

Use these Four Factors to Assess Your Business Strategy Profile

Every business exists for a purpose. Usually, that purpose is to make money. However, making money is not a business strategy. Selling products or services is not a strategy, either. It is entirely possible to run a business by selling products or services to make money, without having a strategy in place. It is possible, but it is dangerous because the business will be reactive to customers, competitors, and other market forces, instead of proactively driving toward a specific posture within the competitive landscape.

March 20, 2020

Patent Guidance: 10 Criteria for Deciding when to File a Non-Provisional Patent Application

[This post was originally published May8, 2018, on LinkedIn by Jeff Holman.]

Ironically, the tasks of preparing and filing a patent application might be less stressful than actually making the decision to file. Very often, inventors file a provisional patent application, get “patent pending” status for 12 months, and then stress over whether to file a non-provisional patent application before the provisional patent application expires. Here are 10 criteria to help make that decision easier.