License patent ibm

It does not prune at all, it appears, in order to win the PR race with its competitors by producing the great number of patents per year. That thought occurred to me as well, but it strikes me as a practice that might run afoul of ethics rules. Anybody have any thoughts on this? What pray tell would it cost YOU? You could even tweak it so you would be even happier.

A patent attorney drafts and at the end of the day can say: Look I have facilitated my client advancing the useful arts. If you love the app so much then get the folks to assign it over to your shell corp with you paying them a few thousand dollars for it. Of course assure them a license. Pin up the Notice of Allowance on your wall, if it makes you feel better.

Pay the issue fee out of your own pocket if you like. Unless it troubles you to have a client sensible enough to stop spending money when it stops making business sense. IANAE points out the obvious, but what do you have to show for all that work, other than billed time and a happy client?

Recently got a first-action allowance in a case for a corporate client that went belly-up a few years ago. I have no firsthand knowledge, but most companies give the inventor a small monetary reward upon issuance. Inventors also perceive some professional prestige in having a patent issued in their name. Your client has business objectives. You also have business objectives. Is there nothing more frustrating than drafting and prosecuting and application, for years, only for the client to tell you to abandon AFTER getting allowance?

Are you saying that Apple and Canon know which patents would be found invalid, and are maintaining them anyway? Why would IBM be able to predict such a thing? The whole point of maintenance fees other than to raise money for the PTO is that things change over a four-year timeframe, and the value of patents may change based on new information.

What are the parameters used for pruning decisions? Good point — applications for which non-publication was requested that do not issue have no defensive value at all against later patents, whereas those that issue are fully effective as prior art from their original filing date for everything they show or describe, even if the allowed claims have no value. This business of being top of the list of those issued with the most patents.

And have they made a rod for their own back? If the number of patents issued to IBM should get smaller this year, what will that do to their share price? Further on this subject of maintenance fees, some of the worst offenders in confusing the increasing number of issued patents with the much smaller number of patents that are actually in force [after the great extent of early terminations by non-payments of the maintenance fees, especially the second and third] are academics writing economic articles about patents.

Wait 3. I agree with Paul, and I wonder if IBM has ever failed to pay an issue fee given the sheer number of patents it obtains each year. A major factor is the PR value. Many corporations think that a large number of issued patents will convince the stock market that they are a high tech company worthy of a higher stock price.

There is much less attention paid to patents being abandoned for non-payment of maintenance fees. Typically that is for technical obsolecence. Typically these days there are a lot of years passing between an application filing date and even a first patent maintenance fee date. IBM has an unusually effective system for saving money by doing maintenence fee pruning systematically. I have not seen any studies justifying the latter rationale, but I have not really looked.

Finally, some companies have separate licensing organizations that worry that a patent on which maintenance fees have not been paid might turn out years later to be valuable after all.

Thanks Ned. Bruce, Why not abandon after publication? Now that I call frustrating. Just a thought for the conspiracy minded. I don't follow. This needs a bit more explaining. Leo, adverse interests. It gets very complicated. With the inventors who were really good folks to work with, it made no difference.

Paul Morgan is correct. Other companies are not organized like IBM, else their behavior would be similar. Complete agreement here. Even getting a patent is a work in itself. The process is quite vast and costly, and once your patent is granted, the next step is to commercialize it to reap the benefit from your patents. Though there are multiple ways to commercialize your patents, we have covered a few of the major ones in detail here:.

Patent can contribute a crucial role in sharpening your competitive edge in the market. But often, decision-makers get overwhelmed by the cost and complexity involved in building a patent program for their business and maintaining the patent portfolio after that. In this webinar, Tom Franklin, a seasoned patent attorney with 25 years of experience in building and managing portfolios shared how you can build a winning patent strategy for your organization and do so without crushing your budget or time.

Tom also shared how to determine the goal of patents for your company, the actual costs involved in getting a patent, and how to choose the right counsel to work with. In this article, we will be giving you an overview of how you can use patent licensing to make money from your patents.

We will take a deep dive into the topic and explore various types of licenses that exist and have a brief look at each of them. That is not it.

We would also be exploring the benefits of patent licensing and things to take care of before going ahead with the licensing process.

By the time you read the last sentence of this article, you will have an understanding of the following topics:. In other terms licensing a patent is a mutual agreement between individual or companies or a company which you choose to make, use, and sell your product in the market.

As you are the patent holder, your ownership retains in the invention and you enjoy royalty payment on the product. This is a safety practice that you should undertake because if by any chance your relationship with the licensee gets spoiled, you can take further necessary steps with their help.

Before you decide to license your patent, it is a good practice to ask oneself the following questions:. Once these questions are answered, you would have a clear framework and could go ahead with further steps. A lot of companies have made a ton of money by merely strategically licensing their patents. NuCurrent, a wireless charging startup, for instance, earns millions of dollars by licensing its patents to the likes of Apple and Motorola that use their patents in their products.

They even recently sued Samsung for infringing their patents related to wireless charging. We conducted a preliminary analysis to assess the strength of their patent which you can read from here. Another innovative giant, the big blue, known to the world like IBM, is one of the largest patent licensors in the world, reportedly earning billions in-licensing and sale of its patent portfolio.

Speaking of it, the royalty rate of a patent can vary from five percent to twenty percent depending on the licensee. The company designs a series of inter-related intellectual property IP , including microprocessors, Physical IP, and supporting software and tools. In an Exclusive License, there is the transfer of ownership by the patent holder. The only thing which the owner has is the title. This is just like stepping into the shoes of the patent owner and acquiring all the responsibility of it.

In this contract, the license for the patent can be granted to more than one party, and all of them can maintain control over it and bring it to the market. This is a process where the licensee has the right to issue a license to different organizations for the making of the product. In other words, the licensee has the right to giving the license further to a third party who has the advantage to create the product. However, the profits will be dependent on the contract between the primary licensee and third party.

This is a process when there could be an exchange of licenses between different organizations and creators. This is required when the invention requires the support of other products to make its place in the market. A little complicated, and usually reserved for pharmaceutical patents, compulsory licensing is when the government allows someone else to practice your patented invention — even against the will of the patent owner — for a set amount of money. For a detailed explanation, click here.

Also applicable for pharmaceutical patents, voluntary licenses are an act of goodwill towards the society. Depending on the terms of the license, the licensee may act entirely or effectively as an agent of the patent holder; or the licensee may be free to set the terms of sale and distribution within a prescribed market or markets, contingent on payment of a royalty.

Either option or arrangements in between would allow for substantial price reductions. This licensing approach is suitable when the potential licensee is not in the practice of the patented invention and does not fall under any obligation to take a license. This kind of license is a marketing tactic where the patent owner gives the licensee a glimpse of what could be achieved by acquiring a license for their patent.

In other words, it is simply a market practice in which you convince a prospective licensee to take a license. Stick licensing is the complete contrast of carrot licensing.

This approach of licensing can be used when the prospective licensee is already in use of your patented technology and, thereby, infringing your patent. After all, if there were no threat of litigation why would someone ever license a patent? Now that we have an idea of the kind of licenses that exist, let us find out the pros and cons of licensing.

Moreover, IP revenue is typically high-margin income, much of which goes to the bottom line and and enhances earnings per share. That is still true today. IBM has learned to use its patents and other IP rights in creative ways to encourage client relationships and, in recent years, to file suit, when necessary.

But IBM can not live by patent litigation or portfolio sales alone. It has sold groups of patents to ready-to-go public companies, including AirBnB, Facebook and Twitter. While it continues to secure licensing deals, they are fewer and harder-won, with more costly litigation necessary to achieve them. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account.