IP Due Diligence
Value your complex IP portfolio.
Mergers, acquisitions, venture capital investments and other such important transactions often require an accurate and thorough evaluation of the intellectual property (IP) involved in the transaction. We help companies, venture capitalists, and investment banks evaluate and protect IP and achieve their business goals through freedom to practice analyses and patent portfolio audits. Such IP due diligence activities help our clients identify opportunities to strengthen their patent portfolios, reduce their IP risks, and place a value on complex IP portfolios prior to a purchase, sale or investment.
Comprehensive Risk Evaluations
IP Due Diligence Services
EVALUATE YOUR IP PORTFOLIO
Comprehensive Due Diligence Investigations
Freedom-to-practice investigations and opinions
Often, companies and individuals will have a wonderfully patentable idea. However, the ownership of a patent for your idea does not automatically mean you can practice the invention described in the patent. There may be an existing patent that will be infringed by practicing your invention. Accordingly, we have conducted many freedom-to-operate (clearance) searches to determine whether a product can be made, sold, or used without infringing a patent of another. Such searches may be conducted for any items of commerce that are new, whether patented or not.
Investigation of infringement
Once you are accused of infringement, or if you want to accuse someone of infringement, a comprehensive study of the claims of the patent must be conducted to determine (1) whether the patent is valid, (2) whether the patent claims cover the accused device, and (3) whether or not there are any defenses to infringement. The validity study may concentrate on a single patent or specific group of patents rather than searching for any other patent that the device may infringe. Accordingly, there are significant differences between validity or infringement investigations and freedom-to-operate investigations. In an infringement investigation, the resulting opinion should be sufficient for litigation purposes in order to prove infringement or avoidance of infringement.
Patent coverage assessments
Typically patents are written for products and processes that have not yet been commercialized. Often, once a product or process is commercialized, it may differ significantly from what was originally patented. If the actual product or process is found to contain a non-obvious variation of what was originally patented, then an assessment of the patentability of that non-obvious variation should be made to determine if it is reasonable to file additional patent applications to cover such variations that were not addressed in the original patent.
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