Intellectual Property (patents, copyrights and trade secrets) protection is imperative. An IP strategy, offensive or defensive, is therefore key to the success of the company. However, IP strategy is often a weak link in startups, because:

 

• The responsibility of identifying patentable ideas and articulating them such that they are palatable to an IP attorney is a time-consuming challenge for an already overextended engineering organization

• Engineers tend to be modest about their inventions and overestimate the requirements for a patent.

 

Patent Catalyst

 

We assist start-up clients in performing an IP audit, establishing its IP strategy, identifying the IP that requires patent protection, and working with both the firm's engineers and patent lawyers to ensure prompt filing of such IP. In order to facilitate this process we interview the engineers and prepare key documents which we call “Invention Core Description” and "Patent Pseudo Document". The pseudo document is in the general format of a patent application but written in an engineering orientation such that the inventor can clearly understand and work with the key points to protect. Much emphasis is given in prior art search and in differentiating our clients’ inventions from prior art. Then, we work with a select list of top rate patent legal firms, generally without further interruption of the client's engineering work. With the non-legal work already done by Ni/T, attorney fees are considerably lower.

 

Invariably, the Nif/T approach:

 

• Increases the scope of the protection

• Reduces the stress on the engineering organization and lowers engineering involvement by 90% 

• Reduces front-end cash expenditures by 80%.

 

Nif/T does not replace IP attorneys. Instead, Nif/T introduces a phase that precedes drafting patents, and provides a structured way to identify and broaden protectable ideas. The process produces documents that allow IP attorneys to submit the patents much more rapidly and at a reduced cost. We assist the legal firm and our client throughout the entire process of the patent prosecution, including the logistics involved. Our involvement and command of a firm's IP allows us to provide additional assistance in the areas of IP licensing, IP evaluation, and IP negotiation. Our fees are strictly based on success milestones.

 

2,000 Patents

 

More than 2,000 patents for  170 client firms have been processed through this system since 2002.  Those that have gone through full examination by Patent & Trademark Offices (PTO) have a success rate exceeding 95%.

 

Summary of Benefits of the Patent Catalyst Service
 

• We reduce the inventor’s time in dealing with a patent application by a factor of 10…

• …by combining very senior technical writers with long high tech business experience who work with top tier patent attorneys, in an extremely streamlined process  

• We improve the value of patents by bringing in a business and marketing perspective – which lawyers do not

• We provide to management the tools to decide the priority of inventions to be filed based on the relative asset value of patents - both business value and potential patent strength 

• We provide financial managers tools to set predictable budgets for patent development 

• We reduce the cash flow for patent development by taking half of the success fees in stock and by pushing milestone related cash outlays out in time, including 41% of our milestone fees to patent allowance.  With Nif/T, you only pay for success! 

• We typically achieve a ratio of allowed patents to submitted applications of over 95%. Compared to competing processes that achieve a much lower percent of allowances, we save our clients a large fraction of their patent portfolio development cost.

​See our new IP Catalyst Brochure HERE