When approached with this legal assertion, as a patent counselor for your client, you need insights to help you define and determine your defense. No, I am not: A patent is defined by its language, and many times, proper preparation for a Markman Hearing, or Claim Construction Hearing, can determine the summary judgment. If you are accused of infringing on a claim, you want to find ways to minimize the scope of the claim [on the other hand, if you are accusing, you want to broaden a claim's scope]. With IP Street, you can scrutinize a claim in various ways. Your patent is invalid: Since the USPTO granted the patent, the presumption is that all of its claims are valid. Anyone can challenge the validity of a patent (request re-examination) whether or not an infringement injunction has been made. [Normally, when the USPTO learns of an infringement lawsuit, out of due diligence, they open a re-examination case.] The quickest path to invalidate a patent is to identify prior art.

Sadly, the value of a patent is generally determined by the courts. Most litigation involves infringement, but there are also other lawsuits regarding ownership and inventorship and SEC anti-competitive allegations. Let IPStreet.com help you better protect against patent infringment, better utilize patent search tools and patent your invention under the guidance of an experienced patent lawyer.

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.

If the complexities of legalities seems simple, you may want to consider becoming a patent agent or patent attorney. If you are a do-it-yourselfer (DIY), you may want to get David Pressman's book "Patent it Yourself" or David Hitchcock's book "Patent Searching Made Easy". If you are like the rest of us, this process does not seem simple. Sure it may cost some money to engage someone to guide you through this process, so you need to carefully consider your innovation in context of (1) is it patentable? and (2) is it a viable business opportunity? It may, however, be in your best interest to learn as much as you can about the system and then hire a competent patent attorney to get the job done. Just think what it would cost to great idea, poorly patented, which may ultimately cost you "like a bigillion dollars in lost royalties or something like that."

Ask yourself? Which side of the game do you want to be on? Do you want to be remembered as the executive who failed to recognize the business opportunity staring you in the face? Or do you want to be remembered as the visionary who executed and altered your company forever? The choice is yours.