Tweet of the Week: @IPStrategist
Jackie Hutter has over 13 years experience in advising innovation-driven corporations, investors and universities on how to maximize intangible asset value by developing and executing on IP and patent strategy. In a post on her IP Asset Maximizer Blog, she says,
I often facetiously refer to myself as a "recovering patent attorney." This somewhat tongue-in-cheek phrase seems appropriate to my present professional state of mind because, after many years of drafting and prosecuting patents for clients of all sizes and degrees of sophistication, in the end, I became disillusioned with the way the patent business traditionally operates.
Too often, I found that the patents I worked so hard (and was paid handsomely) to obtain failed to serve my client's business needs. In searching for the source of the disconnect between my efforts, the client's expenditures and the ultimate value of the patent to my client's business, I realized that those responsible for the client's business often did not participate adequately in the patenting process. Instead, at many organizations, inventors and patent attorneys served as the gatekeepers for most patent decisions. While the relevant client business unit typically held some say in patenting decisions, at many companies, the process effectively operated within a R&D/patent attorney "silo."
Upon reflection, I found this situation akin to the proverbial "fox guarding the hen house" because those with the most riding on the patenting process i.e., R & D managers and patent attorneys, held de facto decision rights as to their company's patents. Patent decision-making at many corporations seemed therefore to often rest on the perceived scientific value of the invention covered by the patent, not whether a patent for that invention served to effectively execute on the client's business strategy. In short, many patents that I obtained covered cool ideas, but were nonetheless effectively worthless to serve the client's business needs.
Continue reading Confessions of a "Recovering Patent Attorney" and Why I Have Joined the Growing Ranks of IP Strategists on Jackie Hutter's IP Asset Maximizer Blog.
