Sunhee (Sunny) LEEPartner, Sughrue Mion, PLLC.

Managing intellectual properties including patent, trade secret, trademark and copyright may is important to entrepreneur entities of all sizes, regardless they are public or private. IBM makes a larger income from patenting licensing than from selling products. Eastman Kodak had to pay Polaroid almost US$ 1 billion and to stop making the cameras, when a court found Kodak infringed Polaroid’s patents. Good patent management ranges from building, maintaining, and exploiting its own patent portfolio as well as accessing others’ innovation without infringing them.

Each step of strategic management of patent rights, from planning (based on goals for managing patents), to assessment (evaluating internal resources and external environment and placing a financial value on patent rights), and to implementation (accessing innovators of others, enforcement, and making deals) will be discussed.