IPVisionBusiness Perspectives on Patents, Innovation, and Strategy

Sangetta Bhatia is the 2014 Lemelson-MIT Prize Winner

hadzima@ipvisioninc.com (Joe Hadzima) — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 13:07:00 GMT

The Lemelson-MIT Awards Committee announced that the 2014 Winner of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize is Sangetta Bhatia, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a faculty member at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT.

According to The Lemelson-MIT Program the Prize "recognizes individuals who translate their ideas into inventions and innovations that improve the world in which we live....Dubbed the "Oscar for Inventors," the Lemelson-MIT Prize is awarded to outstanding mid-career inventors who have developed a patented product or process of significant value to society, which has been adopted for practical use, or has a high probability of being adopted."

Trained as both a physician and engineer, Bhatia is dedicated to leveraging miniaturization tools from the world of semiconductor manufacturing to impact human health. She has pioneered technologies for interfacing living cells with synthetic systems, enabling new applications in tissue regeneration, stem cell differentiation, medical diagnostics and drug delivery. Her multidisciplinary team has developed a broad and impactful range of inventions, including human micro livers which model human drug metabolism, liver disease, and interaction with pathogens, and a suite of communicating nanomaterials that can be used to interrogate, monitor and treat cancer and other diseases. See: MIT Technology Review for articles and stories about her work.

Patent Portfolio Interconnection Map of Belcher Patents

As of June 2014 Professor Belcher was listed as an inventor on 11 issued U.S. patents and 27 published pending U.S. patent applications.

This IPVision Patent Portfolio Interconnection Map shows the U.S. patents and applications of Sangetta Bhatia and the citation relationships within the portfolio. Note: Click on the Patent Map Image to View an Interactive Patent Map

The Bhatia patents have been cited by 243 other U.S. patents owned by companies such as Sanofi-Aventis, C.R. Bard, Insulet Corporation, BioArray Soulutions and Surface Logix.

IPVision Report Provided to Lemelson-MIT Prize Committee

IPVision provided the Lemelson-MIT Prize Committee with patent analysis reports on each of the semi-finalist and finalist nominees for the 2014 Lemelson-MIT Prize. Obtain a free copy of the IPVision Patent Analysis Report on Sangetta Bhatia.

Bose Sues Beat Electronics – Patent Map and Analytics of Each Side

hadzima@ipvisioninc.com (Joe Hadzima) — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 13:15:00 GMT

On July 25, 2014, Bose Corporation filed a patent infringement suit against Beats Electronics, which is in the process of being acquired by Apple for $3 billion.

Let’s take a look at the complaint and what ammunition each side has in its patent portfolio.

Bose alleges that Beats “Studio®” and “Studio® Wireless” brands active noise reduction headphones infringe Bose patented noise cancellation technology. In the complaint Bose states “For almost 50 years, Bose has made significant investment in the research, development, engineering, and design of proprietary technologies now implemented in its products, such as noise cancelling headphones. Bose’s current line of noise cancelling headphones, for example, embodies inventions protected by at least 36 U.S. patents and applications (22 patents and 14 pending applications) ….. Bose’s latest noise cancelling headphones model, the QC20, is protected by at least 27 U.S. patents and applications (14 patents and 13 pending applications)”. In the complaint Bose asserts that Beat is infringing the following U.S. patents (the “Asserted Patents”):

Technology Landscapes: Corporate Venture Group: Deal Scouting

hadzima@ipvisioninc.com (Joe Hadzima) — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 12:09:00 GMT

This is the fourth in a series of articles about Technology Landscapes aka Patent Landscapes. In the first post “Why I Hate the Phrase ‘Technology Landscape’” we note that the phrase “technology landscape” means different things to different people in different contexts. In the second article “Technology Landscapes and Patent Monetization” we point out that a technology landscape is only the starting point to making business decisions regarding Patent Monetization (making money on your patents). The third article investigated the use of a technology landscape to support a Corporate Growth Strategy for an emerging company.

Technology Landscapes: Emerging Company Growth Strategy

hadzima@ipvisioninc.com (Joe Hadzima) — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 14:55:00 GMT

This is the third in a series of posts about Technology Landscapes aka Patent Landscapes. In the first post “"Why I Hate the Phrase ‘Technology Landscape’” I note that the phrase “technology landscape” means different things to different people in different contexts. In the second article “Technology Landscapes and Patent Monetization” I point out that a technology landscape is only the starting point to making business decisions regarding Patent Monetization (making money on your patents).

This article is about a company that asked IPVision for a technology landscape to support its Corporate Growth Strategy.

Technology Landscapes and Patent Monetization

hadzima@ipvisioninc.com (Joe Hadzima) — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 12:14:00 GMT

This is the second in a series of posts about Technology Landscapes aka Patent Landscapes. In the first post “Why I Hate the Phrase ‘Technology Landscape’”. I point out that the phrase “Technology Landscape” is used to describe everything from a $1,000 offshore basic patent search to a $200k high-end consulting engagement with strategy consulting firms or a law firm billing by the hour. Although the price varies greatly, what these Technology Landscape Vendors have in common is:

Why I Hate the Phrase "Technology Landscape"

hadzima@ipvisioninc.com (Joe Hadzima) — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 13:12:00 GMT

A wise man once said that “language gets in the way of communication”. In my experience the lexicon of “technology landscape” aka “patent technology landscape” gets in the way of making strategic and even tactical business decisions involving intellectual property and business strategy. That is why I hate the phrase “Technology Landscape” as applied to patents.

Best Practice Processes for Patent Maintenance Fee Payment Decisions

hadzima@ipvisioninc.com (Joe Hadzima) — Mon, 05 May 2014 14:28:00 GMT

My previous article showed how expensive patents are – from $220,000 to $440,000 to file and maintain a patent in the United States and 9 other major industrial countries. I also discussed one experiment that showed that data driven patent analytics could predict manually determined patent maintenance fee payment decisions over 70% of the time while dramatically reducing the time and cost to conduct the manual review. In this current article I describe best practice Patent Maintenance Fee Payment Decision Processes.

IPVision has worked with many companies to implement evidence-based data driven processes for the cost-effective evaluation and management of patents. The specific processes that are adopted differ somewhat in the details because companies differ in their culture and structure and because of their differing industry technology and competitive environments.

Although the specific processes differ there are core components in each of these programs. The following is a step-by-step compendium of the best practices I have seen.

Patents Are Expensive - How To Make Patent Maintenance Fee Decisions

hadzima@ipvisioninc.com (Joe Hadzima) — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 15:11:00 GMT

Patents are expensive. Patents are granted country by country, meaning there are filing and maintenance fees due in each country where you want to obtain a patent. A 2003 study by the United States General Accounting Office reported that the lifetime cost for a small company to file and maintain a patent in the United States and also in 9 other major industrial countries ranged from US$170,000 to US$340,000 in 2002 Dollars or about $220,000 to $440,000 in 2013 Dollars. And these figures are for small companies, which usually pay half the filing fees for large companies.

Because patents are expensive deciding what to patent, where to patent and what patents to keep are serious financial and strategic business decisions. A “sail on a bicycle” may be a cool invention but is it a valuable patent? It depends. But first, what are the components of patent cost?

Patent Portfolio Trafficking - Part 4: Comprehensive Patent Evaluation Metrics

hadzima@ipvisioninc.com (Joe Hadzima) — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 23:45:00 GMT

The first article in this series discussed the reasons for increased activity in Patent Portfolio Trafficking, i.e. patent portfolios offered for sale or license. The second article described how companies with Small Volumes of portfolios to evaluate were able to streamline their patent evaluation processes from weeks to days using a Metric Driven Approach. The third article looked at companies that have more fully Integrated Patent Analytics into their patent portfolio acquisition process. This article discusses how organizations dealing with larger volumes of patents are integrating IPVision’s efficient and comprehensive patent evaluation metrics into their processes.

Patent Portfolio Trafficking - Part 3: Patent Review Committees

hadzima@ipvisioninc.com (Joe Hadzima) — Mon, 14 Apr 2014 13:51:00 GMT

The first article in this series discussed the reasons for increased activity in Patent Portfolio Trafficking, i.e. patent portfolios offered for sale or license. The second article described how companies with Small Volumes of portfolios to evaluate were able to streamline their patent evaluation processes from weeks to days using a Metric Driven Approach. This article looks at companies that have more fully integrated patent analytics into their patent portfolio acquisition process.