Marketplace and Legal Strategy Integration

Design and Deployment of IP Portfolio

Any qualified intellectual property attorney can file patent or trademark applications. That’s a given. What’s not a given is that the patent you get is the patent you need to carve out and protect your market space. After all, isn’t that why you want a patent? It’s not about the invention, it’s about the business.

Example:

One of our clients has invented a data communications device intended for use in the medical services markets. He could have gone to a firm that would take his drawings and get him a patent that protected his invention for that application. But by thoroughly understanding his invention and his business plans, we were able to identify several additional markets for which his invention would be valuable – markets and applications that he had not envisioned.

We could do this because we didn’t just assign a junior associate attorney to write his patent. We assigned a 25 year attorney, and a Ph.D. scientist, and a business advisor to look at his business and his patent project. All of these resources were deployed at about the same price he would have paid for standard legal services at a downtown firm. As a result, he now has multiple patents for multiple applications, and is on his way to licensing each to a different partner in a different market.

Why is this important? Because not only does he now have multiple business segments in which to reap the rewards of his invention, but his invention is more secure than if he had received only one patent. With a single patent, if a competitor in one market successfully challenges the patent in that market, the patent is damaged in all markets. With multiple patents, one patent could be challenged in that market without damage to another. And, should he want to sell his patents, he has more to sell and more buyers to sell to.

We don’t want to simply write patents, apply for trademarks, or write your license agreements. We want to further your business in meaningful ways by helping you identify, penetrate, and defend a market space so that you can conduct your business without fear that your competitors will use your inventiveness against you. We want you to make the most out of your inventions. That means integrating all aspects of your business plans, from your corporate structure, to your shareholder and employee agreements, to your product development processes, to your distribution or franchise agreements, to your contracts and license agreements, to the companies you look to for a merger or acquisition, to the prevention and effective resolution of disputes, and, ultimately, to the day that you want to plan your exit from the business.

Intellectual property should never be dealt with, rationalized, or planned in isolation. All areas of your business are interconnected, and only with a comprehensive approach to your business needs can you get the best results. This is all the more important when your intellectual property is the cornerstone of your business venture.

Altera can counsel and assist you on the structure and processes of your business, on defensive and offensive uses of your intellectual property, on sale, licensing, or purchasing strategies, on omnibus patents, or business method patents. But more importantly, with our unique capabilities and resources, we can put it all in the context of your overall business objectives.

Business and Tax Structures

With Altera's strategic alliances coupled with close working relationships with some of the best accounting firms for small and mid cap companies, Altera can help you structure your business, and the ownership of your intellectual assets, to minimize your tax exposure and protect your investments.

Merger and Acquisition Due Diligence

Our attorney staff is extraordinarily experienced. We don’t hire first year attorneys, or second, or third, or fourth… We want experience, seasoning, and maturity. Our patent prosecutors, for instance, average nearly more than 15 years of experience, and are all credentialed in one of the engineering arts or sciences. Likewise, our litigation attorneys average 15 years experience, and so on. Our business advisors average nearly 30 years experience in business, most of that in Executive management of large and diverse enterprises. With this team, we have been through many M&A due diligence processes. We’ve been through big deals and small deals, as attorneys, acquirees, and acquirers.