Originally published by Barry Barnett.
In 2014, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued 300,678 “patents for invention”. Since 1990, a total of 4,008,329 of these utility patents have won USPTO approval. How many does your company own?
Don’t worry if you don’t know the answer. You can find it in a few minutes.
Simply go to the USPTO Full-Text and Image Database’s Quick Search feature. Type your company’s name in the “Term 1″ box, choose “Assignee Name” from the drop-down menu beside “Field 1″, and then click on the “Search” button.
The list
Et voila! The USPTO’s search engine produces a list of all the U.S. patents that your company owns legal title to, as a matter of record. The USPTO keeps track of patent assignments, which employers typically require employees to sign for any invention they come up with during their employment.
The list shows, on the left, each patent’s USPTO number and, in the right-hand column, the patent’s descriptive title. Both contain a hyperlink to an html copy of the patent. The landing page includes an “Images” link, which takes you to an analog version in which you can see the figures that the body of the patent refers to.
What next?
I get a lot of requests from people who already know they own patents. They ask me to look at representing them on a contingent-fee basis. They believe — or at least hope — that their patents deserve (and with the right handling will yield) many millions of dollars in royalty payments from infringers and licensees.
A query came in just yesterday from an Asian company. The company’s president urged in a white paper that many large media companies have infringed the patent and that the infringers can afford to pay large damages awards as recompense for their infringing activities.
But what if you don’t even know whether or not the company that you work for owns any patents? Or maybe you just did a Quick Search in the USPTO Full-Text and Image Database and saw that your company does hold title to one or more U.S. patents? What now?
Ask for a portfolio review
Well, now you need to locate a lawyer who will examine your portfolio (even if your portfolio = one patent). If you don’t know one, please don’t ask Google; seek the recommendation of a lawyer you trust and get at least a couple of names.
Many lawyers who handle patent infringement cases on a contingent-fee basis will happily scan your portfolio for gems that could both give the lawyer a chance to earn a big fee and enable your company to award you a handsome bonus.
Don’t expect too much. The lawyer won’t likely provide you with an opinion about the value of your patents (unless of course you pay her for that service). Nor may the lawyer expend a lot of his resources investigating a doubtful case. (Many of our patent-owning clients pay us to do that work on an hourly or flat-fee basis, knowing that if we can find a way to make a strong case we will gladly take it on a contingent-fee basis.)
But you’ll get a quick read on whether your portfolio justifies a closer look. What do you have to lose?
Curated by Texas Bar Today. Follow us on Twitter @texasbartoday.
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