Building a strong base for IP protection will make it difficult for other people and companies to infringe upon protected rights. One way to secure intellectual property protection is to cover IP with various types of IP rights. Patent infringment is a serious threat for anyone interested in patenting an idea or interested in patenting an invention. Imagine that the IP of a particular U.S. company is a novel paintbrush. The company can obtain a utility patent in the United States covering the novel paintbrush. If the company has business in Europe, it might be wise to file a PCT as well. It might be beneficial to write a claim, also, for painting with the paintbrush. By doing so, the company would ensure that both people manufacturing the brush, and each small or large painting using the brush, would be guilty of infringement if they were not first granted a license to use the brush in any manner they saw fit. When the company holding the patent improves the tool, it can always file a new patent covering the improvement (continuation-in-part application). Additionally, a design patent might protect the design of the paintbrush. Finally, the company might have a unique name for the tool that could be trademarked. The patent search tools and resources provided at IPStreet.com, will help you better understand patent duration, how to protect from patent infringement and ways to connect to experienced patent lawyers.

Let IP Street help you with your concept search. Once you have drafted the description and claims of the invention, you can utilize our multi-word patent search to see relevant patent documents that have similar textual relationships. This document relevancy search can help you have a better understanding of the patent draft so you can appropriately revise and rewrite to maximize the claim scope. These patent valuation and search tools will help you better develop the patent analytics and potential duration of a patent.

Understanding the growing "Intermediary" landscape is essential for your development of in/out strategies. Whether you are looking to buy/sell, license, identify potential infringement/infringees, expand/limit patent scope within a portfolio, you need to be aware of the competive landscape. Many intermediaries have developed sophisticated algorithms to determine their course of action. With our patent search tools, you can quickly and easily execute strategy based on our sophisticated algorithms. Understanding patent analytics just got easier.

The main type of patent, a utility patent, covers inventions that function in a unique manner to produce a utilitarian result. Examples of utility inventions are Velcro® hook-and-loop fasteners, new drugs, electronic circuits, software that is tied to some form of hardware, semiconductor manufacturing processes, new bacteria, newly discovered genes, new animals, plants, automatic transmissions, Internet techniques and methods of doing business (provided physical things are involved), and virtually anything else under the sun that can be made by humans. To get a utility patent, one must file a patent application that consists of a detailed description telling how to make and use the invention, together with claims (formally written sentence fragments) that define the invention, drawings of the invention, formal paperwork, and a filing fee. Sometimes the state of the art, rather than the nature of the novelty, will determine whether a design or utility patent is proper for an invention. If a new feature of a device performs a novel function, than a utility patent is proper. According to the USPTO in 2009, there were 456,106 utility patent applications. Patent law is designed to promote innovation in "science and useful arts." It's right there in the first Article of the Constitution: in order to be patentable, an invention needs to be useful in some way. Utility patents expire 20 years from the date of filing.

Lee is IP Street's CEO. Art Coffey, a business strategist who took RLH public on the NYSE as its CFO, best known for his leadership as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Lion Hotels Corporation from 2003 to 2008, is COO & CFO. Tammy Krieger, Director of Product Management, was formerly in a leading role with Microsoft's patent group and brings expertise in data management, patent analysis and process optimization. John Vogel, Vice President of Engineering, leads the software development team, formerly co-founded and developed Saas companies such as Four Creeks. The team is backed by a board of directors that include Stacey Cowles (Cowles Company), Dennis Hopton (York Trade Limited of Hong Kong), George Nethercutt (former U.S. Representative), and Lee and Coffey. IP Street's advisory board includes Roger Cheng (Alibaba), Scott Hayden (Amazon), Shawn Clark (Microsoft), Dan Crouse (Lee & Hayes), John Murphy (T-Mobile), and Joseph Schappert, MD (PAML). The company is privately funded.