Date
Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Time
8:30-10:30 AM

Location
ITA TechNexus
Conference Room A/B
200 S. Wacker, 15th Floor
Chicago, IL 60606

To register to attend the event, please sign up on the ITA website:  http://www.illinoistech.org/event.aspx/2922

The Illinois Technology Association (ITA) is a regional industry trade association headquartered in Chicago and serving all of Illinois.  The ITA provides members with access to connections, information and promotional opportunities to improve business locally, regionally and nationally.

In its first issue, Ronald Jaicks of the Office of the Solicitor, wrote an article entitled Protect Your Innovation: Avoid Scams.  There are numerous horror stories about inventors working with less than reputable invention promotion companies, many lawsuits filed against various scam companies, and the like.  In this article, Jaicks lays out three steps inventors should take before signing up with an invention promotion service.  With the number of inquiries I receive from inventors and clients regarding invention promotion or invention development companies, I believe it is worthwhile for every inventor to follow Jaicks’s advice:

1.  exercise your legal right to receive telling information from companies offering invention promotion services¹;

2.  visit the USPTO’s website for scam prevention to obtain additional information on scam prevention, including a list of published complaints against invention promoters and a link to the Federal Trade Commission’s website where you can learn if a particular company has been investigated or fined; and

3.  search the invention promoter’s name on the Internet and see what turns up.

In my experience, inventors will be best served by doing their homework before dealing with any invention promotion service.  My thanks to InventorsEye for laying out the appropriate plan for inventors to follow to do their research.

—

1.  The American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 requires invention promoters to disclose the following information to a customer in writing, prior to entering into a contract for invention promotion services: (1) the total number of inventions it evaluated for commercial potential in the past five years, as well as the number of those inventions that received positive evaluations and the number that received negative evaluations; (2) the total number of customers with whom it contracted in the past five years, not including customers who have purchased trade show services, research, advertising, or other non-marketing services from the invention promoter, or who have defaulted in their payment to the invention promoter; (3) the total number of customers known by it to have received a net financial profit as a direct result of the invention promotion services it provided; (4) the total number of customers it knows to have received license agreements for their inventions as a direct result of the invention promotion services it provided; and (5) the names and addresses of all previous invention promotion companies with which it or its officers have collectively or individually been affiliated in the previous ten years. (see pages 83 and 84 in the linked Act)

P&G’s philosophy is that by opening their innovation process to third parties, they can leverage the best of innovation, essentially fostering a partnership with the public.  In an interview in November of 2008, Jeff Weedman, Vice President, External Business Development, said of the Connect + Develop program, “Ultimately, we want people with great ideas to come to us and let P&G show them how to best use those ideas.  But we also want to be able to share with them the (financial) rewards and protect their intellectual property.”

If you are an inventor looking for a company to help bring your invention to life, take the time to look at P&G.  They have a description of their program, a portal for submission, a well organized description of specific needs and an FAQ related to their program.  I appreciate P&G’s approach to innovation and it might be a valuable opportunity for you and your invention.

If you have any suggestions for intellectual property related topics you would like to see discussed, please leave a comment with your suggestion below.  If you would like to subscribe to the Intellectual Property Rights Guide Newsletter, please send your email address to me at patrick@richardspatentlaw.com or by providing your contact information via my contact form.

IP rights are not inherently valuable. Their value is the strategic advantage gained by excluding others from using the intellectual property. To be valuable, your exclusionary rights should be strategically aligned with your business objectives. Without a strategic alignment, you may be wasting your investment and missing opportunities to capture valuable market advantages.

The most valuable IP rights are those that provide a competitive advantage over your competitors and build equity in your brand. Whether your products provide unique functionality, improved efficiency or desirable aesthetics, the marketable value is in having your brand recognized as the exclusive source of these offerings.

Utility patents

With respect to your utility patents, your objective is to be the exclusive source of the critical functional aspects of your products. Accordingly, when planning a patent strategy, the most relevant question to ask isn’t, “what does your invention do,” but rather, “what does your invention do that you would like to prevent your competition from doing?” If you can claim capture a valuable distinction, your patent may hold great value.

Design Patents

With respect to your design patents, your objective is to be the exclusive source of products that embody a characteristic visual element. Design patents that protect the aesthetics of your products can tie into your branding and trademark strategies to help you build and maintain long-term value in your products and brand. Preventing others from riding the coattails of your creative designs may be the key to retaining and increasing sales, even when the competition is able to provide similarly functioning products.

Trademarks

With respect to your trademarks, your objective is to have customers recognize your marks as the source for quality products or services within your market. The trademarks you choose may have limited value at their inception, but as your products and services are recognized for their quality and innovation, the goodwill associated with your trademarks grows. Further, like patents, trademarks are assets that your company can license or sell. An experienced intellectual property attorney will help you secure your trademark rights and help you build and leverage their value as your business grows.

Whatever your business or product offerings may be, the value of your IP rights will depend greatly on how well you align your intellectual property protection with your business goals. Make sure you are working with an intellectual property attorney that helps you focus your strategy on valuable rights.

I hope that you find these patent and intellectual property resources useful.  If you run across patent related resources or other resources worth sharing with inventors, entrepreneurs and business owners, please bring them to my attention by contacting me.