Intellectual Property Directions

Many people question the value of pursuing patent protection for small to mid-sized companies.  They point to the expense of obtaining a patent and the even bigger expense of suing an infringer to defend your patent. Earlier this week it was announced that iRobot was awarded a $286 million Army contract that had originally been awarded to a competitor. Why the turn around - a recently filed patent infringement suit convinced the Army not to deal with the competitor. Do you  have any doubt that the cost of the patent is more than covered by the profit on $286 million in revenue? Or even the cost of their ~50 US patent portfolio?

 Admittedly iRobot is now well past the small to mid-sized company stage with revenue approaching $200 million. But it was not that long ago that iRobot was in that category (FY2000 iRobot Revenue est. $15 million) and at that point in their corporate development they had the foresight to be building their patent portfolio (the earliest iRobot application was filed in 1999; presumably they now own patents previously assigned to other entities).

The bottom line is that while many companies file for (and often are awarded) the wrong patents based on misguided perceptions, a company that understands what a patent can and cannot do for them, that can differentiate between a junk patent and a real patent, can reap a significant return on their patent investment.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 21st, 2007 at 9:41 am and is filed under Patent Quality, Patent Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.