From the category archives:

Patent

The Orange Book: The relationship between patents and standards

June 11, 2009

The relationship between patent protection and standards is fraught with problems. Most standard setting organisations require participants in standards development to either renounce their rights to patent protection or, more commonly, to agree to license any intellectual property on a FRAND basis (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) basis. But what happens when a company produces a [...]

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Patents as the wrong kind of signal

May 8, 2009

In an earlier post I discussed having patents as a signal to external (potential) investors and analysts about the quality of a company’s IP and that they take IP seriously. This is because: For some people, having a patent says: “We know about the IP system, we use it, and we are protected.” Conversely, if [...]

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International Patent Litigation: A Review

April 23, 2009

The “flat world” (as Thomas Friedman put it) and the ease of global communication and transport bring with it more global business, and more global business means international disputes. In the IP world, this is no truer than in the realm of patent litigation, with its expense and potentially high stakes. International Patent Litigation by [...]

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GSK, patent pooling and open innovation

February 16, 2009

The Guardian on Friday had a story about GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) changing their strategy towards medicine in the developing world: Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline pledges cheap medicine for world’s poor. As part of this strategy, GSK is pledging to: Cut its prices for all drugs in the 50 least developed countries to no more than 25% of [...]

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MIP Webinar: Catalysing the European IP market

February 9, 2009

Together with the team at Exponent IP, we’ve helped organise a webinar with Managing IP on the European IP services market on February 26 at 2pm GMT. Speakers in the hour-long web seminar will: Discuss where the global IP service market is heading; Ask why Europe lags behind the US; Explain the European perspective on [...]

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Intangible Handbook – Patents

November 27, 2008

Just a quick note to say that the section on patents is now up on the ipVA site as part of the Intangible Handbook. And for my US readers, Happy Thanksgiving! I’m celebrating here in the UK by spending most of the day cooking and having some friends and fellow ex-pats over for a full [...]

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Parajet – the flying car and patents

November 12, 2008

A flying car has been a goal of engineers and The Jetsons fans alike for a number of years now. The Times has a story (“The Flying Car” – 9 Nov. 2008) about the SkyCar – a working (and inexpensive) design based around “paramotors”. These giant fans get strapped to your back and when added [...]

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Scottish funding trends in the downturn

November 5, 2008

Over the weekend the FT ran a piece on a recent report by Scottish Enterprise on the risk capital market in Scotland Scottish start-ups could face funding gap. The highlights: Angel investors are moving to a “cradle-to-exit model”, thus changing the more standard model of angel-to-VC; Overall investment in 2006 and 2007 went up (£85m [...]

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Patents as signals

October 29, 2008

When might you need to patent to show off to others but not as part of your core commercial or IP strategy? In my continuing quest to learn IP strategy from the ground up, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about having patents solely as a signal to others about your IP, but for no [...]

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