Uncategorized

Investing in Patents – Season Two

Here is an audio recording of my book “Investing in Patents.” Investing in Patents is available on Amazon, but if you send me an email and ask nicely, I am happy to mail you a copy. Investing in Patents is the Second Season on PatentMyths. When you subscribe to the podcast, you will get all…

Read More

The Myth of Provisional Patent Applications

Startups are routinely told to get a provisional patent application. There is absolutely NO business reason why a startup should EVER do a provisional, and we pick apart every argument.  (The only reason why startups file provisional patent applications is to placate unsophisticated investors.) Provisional Patent Applications are not the ugly stepchild of Non-Provisional Patent…

Read More

Patent Valuation is a Myth

Patent valuation is really slippery, and completely depends on the context. Patents can be thought of as call options on technology.  They are a time-limited bet that the market will adopt a technology. At the beginning, the patent is an out-of-the-money call option and has only potential value.  Once infringement occurs, the patent turns into…

Read More

Myth: Your Patent Attorney Is Your Friend

Don’t ask the barber if you need a haircut. The conflict of interest between the client and the attorney is huge. We look at an example of an inventor who thought he was getting a “good” patent but it turns out that the patent attorney was only responsible getting “a” patent.  The client was disappointed…

Read More

Willful Blindness and Patents

Inventors – and virtually everyone in the patent process – have huge blind spots. We look at Tropicana’s patents on the single greatest invention in their industry in half a century, and see how at every level nobody would do the math to see if a patent was the right strategy. It turns out that…

Read More

Myth: Inventorship

Inventorship is vitally important to a patent, but people often abuse it. I have heard of companies putting someone’s name on a patent application because they paid for it – or including your boss’s name on a patent even when they did not contribute. Improper inventorship is one of the easiest ways to kill a…

Read More

NDAs ARE Actually Important

Non Disclosure Agreements and Proprietary Information and Inventions Agreements: these are critically important. Some entrepreneurs use NDAs as weapons to ward off the evil people who will “steal” their ideas.  This is using NDAs badly. Use these agreements to set a positive tone of a budding relationship, but also to make sure a startup actually…

Read More