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Portfolio Management: Locating, Organizing, and Communicating Patent Information
Patent portfolio managers face a number of logistical challenges in developing, analyzing and deploying their organizations' patent assets. First, they need to be able to define the scope and content of portfolios under management or review. Second, they need to be able to organize and store information about those portfolios in a way that is repeatable, durable, and accessible. Finally, they need to be able to aggregate and communicate that information to drive budgeting, reporting, and strategy development.
The logistics of identifying, organizing, and communicating patent information are complicated because:
- Patents are unique. Every patent and every claim of every patent is different, so abstractions, summaries, and generalizations run the risk of missing or obscuring the true value of any given patent asset.
- Patents are prolific. There are millions of patents currently in force and more than 150,000 new patents are granted annually in the United States alone; many organizations are managing patent portfolios of hundreds to tens-of-thousands, as well as monitoring competitor portfolios.
- Patent knowledge is expensive. Highly trained legal, technical, and business experts are required to find and extract useful information from patent documents and their supporting contexts.
- Patent and business management resources are in short supply. The patent function of most organizations is lean, lacks the best tools, and receives little (or negative) attention from senior management, which regards patents as an arcane cost center and source of business uncertainty.
The central tension in managing large patent portfolios is that a single claim of a single patent ultimately decides an infringement suit, but numerous patents with numerous claims must be aggregated for product protection and licensing. Deep information about a patent, its claims, its technical context, and its applicability to the market is expensive to acquire. That information can also be very difficult to maintain as it grows and changes over time. Many organizations lose track of the patents they own, the reasons they were gotten in the first place, and the ways they could be applied to today's business challenges. Their portfolios and those of their competitors are just too big to be managed on a claim-by-claim basis, and they have no way to know what information is worth tracking for future use. Patent management is done on an ad hoc basis as the cost of acquiring information (often for the second time) can be balanced against a clear and present business need.
The DOJ's Corporate Enforcement Policy: One Year Later
The DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.
Use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements In White Collar Investigations
This article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.
The DOJ's New Parameters for Evaluating Corporate Compliance Programs
The parameters set forth in the DOJ's memorandum have implications not only for the government's evaluation of compliance programs in the context of criminal charging decisions, but also for how defense counsel structure their conference-room advocacy seeking declinations or lesser sanctions in both criminal and civil investigations.
How AI Has Affected PR
When we consider how the use of AI affects legal PR and communications, we have to look at it as an industrywide global phenomenon. A recent online conference provided an overview of the latest AI trends in public relations, and specifically, the impact of AI on communications. Here are some of the key points and takeaways from several of the speakers, who provided current best practices, tips, concerns and case studies.