Jeff Goodwin is the author of “AI Robots Running Your IP Renewal Strategy“.
Companies have seen their IP portfolios grow significantly since the 1990s, but with a growing portfolio comes growing costs, both in prosecution and renewal fees. As the cost to maintain a portfolio continues to grow, companies need to start thinking smarter and more strategically about their portfolio and begin determining what qualifies as important IP (i.e., IP that provides value and ROI). What makes a patent valuable can vary between companies, which may be why there isn’t a solution on the market to assist in IP renewal strategies. Where one company values a patent that protects a product, another may value IP with high licensing value and opportunity. Now there are IP management solutions on the market, but these solutions do just that, allow you to manage your IP; they don’t help you value and determine which patents you should renew or not. Though these IP management tools do make paying renewal and maintenance fees a lot easier, many have automatic payments, so you never have to see the money leave. So, what is your IP renewal strategy? With growing IP portfolios, how can one reign in the costs and make their portfolio more valuable?