IP Portfolio Management

Creating an effective IP strategy with checks, balances, and regular evaluations to leverage and protect intellectual assets is vital for a company. A company’s intellectual asset strategy should be clearly thought out, and not an after thought. Our team evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of a client’s intellectual property portfolio. We counsel the company and work as a strategic business partner to maximize your IP protection and minimize your exposure to intellectual property rights of third parties.

In portfolio planning, you need to ask a lot of questions, and be prepared to make changes. Do you have a significant number of patents that are not used in your core business? Do you use patents for defensive as well as offensive purposes? Are your US patent applications written to flow smoothly into a foreign country’s patent process? Do you have a licensing program that evaluates licensing out unproductive patents to another industry or segment? Are you paying patent maintenance fees on unproductive patents? Have you adopted adequate procedures to protect and record intellectual property rights? Have inventors been instructed in proper lab notebook authentication that will withstand a priority of invention dispute with another company? Who owns the invention – do you have employment agreements that address intellectual property rights? Do you regularly evaluate a competitor’s intellectual property and its effects on your development? Do you use blocking patents to hedge your positions against competitors?

Do you have a branding strategy? Does your marketing department clear trademarks before adopting them? Do you use the ® on federally registered trademarks? Do you have policies in place for proper use of your trademarks? Do you monitor and enforce your trademark policy?

How do copyrights fit into your business? Do you place a © symbol, year of creation, and name of copyright owner on important documents or other tangible media? Do you monitor employees use of copyrighted materials? Do you have a policy on the use of copyrighted software?

Are trade secrets important to your business? Have you adopted procedures that reflect and demonstrate that you place a value on certain documents or processes as trade secrets? Do you conduct an exit interview with employees to ensure that they do not take or use trade secrets for another party?

Our attorneys will help you answer these and other questions, and manage your intellectual property portfolio. The future is now – let Altera’s team become a valued resource for your company’s long term success.