You Can't Patent Everything Under The Sun
Mike Dillon, General Counsel of Sun Microsystems, has written an interesting blog in which he describes a new approach for a major company that files hundreds of patent applications every year. He says:
...at some point, a company needs to ask how many patents it really needs. And, that's exactly what we did about three years ago. Up to that time Sun was filing well over 1,000 patent applications per year. But, in 2005, we made the decision to reduce our patent filings to the point that we had about 700 patents issued last year. And this number may decline in the future. While this is still a sizable number for most companies, it is a significant decline for Sun and occurs during a period in which we have more innovation than at any point in Sun's history.Why the change? Part of the reason is financial. On average, it costs more than $20,000 to obtain a U.S. patent and this figure grows significantly when you file around the world. Also, this amount does not include annual annuities required to keep a patent in effect. Being selective in what you patent can result in significant savings. However, the bigger reason for the change is that our focus has shifted from quantity to quality. To this end, we have completely re-architected the manner in which we determine the innovations we will patent. As part of this process, inventions are reviewed by a panel of the chief technology officers from across our different lines of businesses with input from distinguished engineers and other experienced innovators. We apply a significant amount of scrutiny to determine whether something is truly innovative before we submit it to the PTO. For us, it doesn't make sense to patent everything. Rather, our focus is on patents that represent significant technological innovation.
Makes a lot of sense. Companies that file applications for several hundred patents every year have to consider carefully which of many thousands of inventions by their employees are worth making a patent application for, and which innovations should be protected with a different strategy. Managing the intellectual property review process, especially in large companies with experienced innovators in many locations around the world, is critically important and sometimes challenging to control.
In many cases, companies rely on ad hoc, human driven processes for safeguarding ideas and making decisions about them. Subsequently, a lot of innovative ideas lie fallow or are lost. Since human processes are error prone, a lot of mistakes get made. This represents a significant risk for companies today. That's why many of our larger clients are employing the newest technologies from IP.com to help them organize their processes for intellectual property review in a secure environment customized for their special needs.
InnovationQ helps protect intellectual property by securing and authenticating it. Powerful tracking and reporting capabilities enable managers to see every event associated with an intellectual property asset, helping to detect synergies in their organization and guard against misuse.
The InnovationQ workflow engine also allows companies to automate intellectual property processes in an easy to use, yet deliberate fashion that helps to ensure error-free compliance.
If your company manages a lot of intellectual property, you might find interesting the white paper "Best Practices for Successful Innovation Management" that is available to download free here from our website. And if you'd like to talk confidentially about your special requirements, by all means give us a call and let's see if we can help you.
