Executives need vision to convert patented R&D into a profit center. Consider EMI, a london company that produces music (a music label company). In their Central Research Laboratories in Hayes, Godfrey Hounsfield had an idea to integrate X-ray slices to create a 3-D image (originally known as an EMI scan), today know as a CT or CAT scan. Godfrey was awared a Nobel Prize for his work, and later knighted. The idea came to him while picnicking in the park; however, the senior executives realized this was no picnic. They leveraged the technology (foundation patent #3,778,614), securing over 120 of the first 450 patents in this space. The legacy competitors (General Electric, Philips, Siemens) were playing catch-up with this innovator. Few executives would be brave enough to execute such a divergent business strategy.

Essential to understanding your portfolio, is to understand changes in your portfolio over time. Beyond merely counting the size of your portfolio as patents are granted and expired, you also need to consider other accumulation and growth patterns: velocity, momentum, claim quality, claim scope, geographic coverage (international), patent duration, patent analytics and patent fences or thickets. Using our patent search tools, such analyses are easy to do. Let IPstreet.com help you today.

No one has a crystal ball to predict ultimate success, but with IPstreet.com, you can "demystify" the complex data and landscape IP so you can make better business decisions. Identifying potential revenue streams is important in your ultimate choice of GO/NO GO in regards to secure patent protection for your invention. To be pursued wisely, a patent is going to cost a minimum of $10K. IPStreet.com's patent search tools are designed for inventors, intellectual property strategists, investors and IP counselors.

Historically, commercial use of university research has been viewed in terms of spillovers. Recently, there has been a dramatic increase in technology transfer through licensing as universities attempt to appropriate the returns from faculty research. This change has prompted concerns regarding the source of this growth—specifically, whether it suggests a change in the nature of university research. (Thursby 2002) ^ University-based firms are receiving growing interest from policy makers and researchers. Such firms obtain a variety of tangible and intangible resources from their academic partners, and are expected to translate these advantages into substantial gains. (Bonardo 2011) ^Technology transfer is a big concern for universities, how can they identify business opportunities from IP developed? We have created relationships with universities to help them do just that. Contact us to learn more.

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.