A patent is a property right for an invention granted by a government to the inventor. A United States patent gives inventors the right "to exclude others" from making, using, offering for sale, or selling their invention throughout the United States or importing their invention into the United States. In exchange for this monopolistic protection, the inventor must publicly disclose the invention (the patent document) and must pay the United States Patent Office (USPTO.gov) to prosecute (application fees) and maintain (maintenance fees) the patent.

Managing human capital is fundamental for a company's success. Merged with IP capital, a new realm of Intellectual Capital needs to be carefully considered. Alone, patents and inventors are important. But together, their synergies may be invaluable to a firm. Know which patents matter, which inventors matter, and which inventors play nice together. Whether you are searching to hire a new inventor, wanting to monitor inventor productivity, or want to analyze your inventor networks (relationships among inventors), IP Street simplifies the complex to provide meaningful insights.

The idea for IP Street originated with Lee, a co-founder of the US's top ranked firm for patent quality, Lee & Hayes (Spokane, Seattle, Austin, Portland, Taipei, and Beijing). Lee became engrossed in the notion of mining IP data to plot business strategy when he was hired by an investment bank to predict the likely outcomes of the landmark NTP v. Research In Motion case. In the time since, he and his firm have come to represent six of the 10 largest patent filers in the United States, and Lee has become a recognized evangelist on the rise of intellectual assets in the U.S., China, and beyond. Lee gathered his colleagues at Lee & Hayes, some IP experts and others business strategists, raised funds, and went to work assembling the technologies and talent behind IP Street today.

"At the heart of any successful organization there is the recognition that only through the firm's talent will it acheive its objectives. With that in mind, the talent management organization's role is to align its strategy for acquiring, managing and developing talent to the business' strategic objectives. Business leaders want to assist with this goal. According to the Aberdeen Group, the top priority in 2011 for best-in-class companies is aligning their business and talent strategy." (Facteau and Hall, July 2011, talent management TM). Let the patent search tools at IPstreet.com help you identify key assets.

In your written patent application you must fully describe your invention to such a degree that a person skilled in the same field as the invention could make or use that invention. A person skilled in the same field as the invention should be able to read your patent application and understand it. The inventor must be able to make claims about his/her invention in clear and definite terms.The part of a patent application that describes and reveals your invention is called the specification and includes various types of descriptions, claims, and drawings depending on the type of invention and type of patent involved. Remember, ideas alone cannot be patented. In other words - you can't just write, "I have an idea for a new alarm clock." You must be able to describe how your alarm works so that an expert in alarm clocks would understand how it would work and that it would indeed work. It's like a recipe ... a good cook should be able to produce your invention based on your patent. As a novice, to file your first patent application yourself is often unwise. However, you could write your own descriptions and then pass them over to your attorney. The attorney could use your writings as a guide and a time-saver, and that will save you money. You should present your inventor's logbook, prototype, and any prior art searches to the attorney. You must write a complete and thorough description of your intellectual property as you cannot add any new information to your patent application once it is filed. You can only make changes to the subject matter that could be reasonably inferred from the original drawings or description.