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In This Issue

Other Kinds of Patent Searches

Patentability Searches

Most inventors are familiar with Prior Art searches, which are often called patent-ability searches. Those searches answer the question, what patents must I be concerned about when I file for an invention on a particular subject matter. The parties who request the search are usually the inventors themselves and sometimes patent attorneys or investors. However there are many other kinds of patent searches that can be performed and which have different purposes and are often requested by persons or companies other than the inventors. Our analysts patent search is a patentability search.

Freedom to Use Searches

The next most common kind of search is for "Freedom to Use or sometimes called "Freedom to Operate". The person requesting this search is less concerned with whether he or she can get a patent on a particular subject and more concerned with whether someone holds a patent that will prevent him from producing a product after having invested lots of time and money getting it to market. This second inquirer may have a patent but it may depend on earlier work which was patented by others and whose patents are still in effect. Or the person may not know what patents exist in the area where he wishes to make the product. To avoid the unpleasant surprise of a letter from an attorney for a patent Troll, its often wise to see what cards the Troll might be holding before making your bet.

Assignee Searches

Another kind of Search is the Assignee search. These are often ordered up by investors or financial analysts who want to evaluate the strength of the patent portfolio held by a company that may be sold or acquired. An Assignee search will identify patents held by a given company or individual. Often they are used to evaluate patent portfolios held by competitors. Other information besides the standard fare such as patent number, issue date, patent class etc may be included. For example some companies want information on Office Actions from patent prosecutions and others want information on lawsuits such as infringement cases.

Provisional Renewal Searches

Sometimes an inventor will not have time to file a non-provisional patent within the 1 year allowed and will want to renew his provisional application. Since a provisional is not examined, that is possible. There is however, one caveat which requires another search. Any patents that were filed or issued during the time the provisional was in force will now be considered prior art against the new provisional. Thus its a good idea to conduct a patent search covering only patents filed or issued during that one year period. These searches are short and not expensive. They are good insurance against an unpleasant surprise that can make your renewed provisional worthless. This article from a past newsletter describes provisionals and renewing them.

If you want to know more about the different kinds of searches we can do , or need our help with your search problem just click on this link to our websites patent search page.

or you can email to rblazey@businessmetamorphosis.com

or give us a call at (585) 520-3539

Representation Agreements

When a client becomes a customer of ITTr we ask them to sign a representation agreement. The document we use is somewhat lengthy and contains a lot of legal language that may confuse some customers. For that reason, I'm writing this article to explain how to read a representation agreement and what decisions a client needs to make before signing one.

Exclusive or Non-Exclusive

The first choice a client must make is whether he/she wants exclusive representation or not. If the client is working with other brokers or contacting some targets on his own, he may not want ITTr to be his exclusive representative. Or the client may want to use another firm in a different country. ITTr usually only represents clients in the USA. Exclusive representation has a lower price than non-exclusive. It is also possible to have exclusive representation except for some pre-selected targets , such as where the client is already negotiating with someone.

Administrative Fee or Not

The ITTr representation agreement includes as an option paying an administration fee to cover the expenses of calling and mailing. Many customers reject paying such a fee because they have heard of many companies that fleece clients by taking an upfront fee and doing no work for it. That I assure you is not the case at ITTr.

The advantage of an Administrative Fee to the client is that we offer a lower commission on the eventual deal to those clients who agree to take it. We still have to do the upfront work whether or not the client pays this fee so we fold the cost of that work into the commissions shown in Table II of our agreement.

Clients who take the fee can potentially save a good deal more than it cost them. Click here Administrative Fee Savings to see just how much you can save. Only our largest admin fee is greater than the savings you realize on most sale prices. Just subtract the administrative fee you pick from the savings shown in the table. You can save as much as $20000 if you take the Bronze admin fee instead of paying the larger commission. The largest fee (double diamond) is still a big savings over the commission on the biggest deals.

Whatever choices you make ITTr is ready to work for you to connect your invention to companies who can commercialize it and pay you a royalty for the privilege. The process we use is described on the ITTr website or write us and we will send you a chart showing exactly what we do for you.

write to rblazey@ittrifecta.com or call (585) 520-3539

The Creation of a Customer

Penguin is all about helping you understand your customers better. Whether we are helping you contact them directly through Market Sonar
^TM

, Followup on Trade Show Leads with Trade Show Followup or Learn about their potential value as an acquisition target or merger partner with First Look
TM
, everything we do is about helping you understand the customer.

And the customer is the most important person to your business. Peter Drucker says that the "Purpose of Business is the Creation of a Customer." If you are already in business you have created some customers. If you want your business to grow you want more of them and you want to keep those you have and increase the amount of business you do with them. In order to do that you must understand your customers.

Many business and sales people spend far too much time talking about themselves and their business and far too little time finding about about the customer and his or her wants and needs.

All the great sales and marketing teachers say this but far too few people follow their advice. This despite the fact the is an ocean of information on customers in the Cloud accessible through not just the Great God Google but also through social media services such as LinkedIn.

But even if you are thoroughly competent with online research there is much information unavailable to you. For example, publicly traded companies are required to disclose a great deal of their information, which makes it easy to research them.

This is not so of privately held companies. And researching them requires access to private databases and the ability to tease out information from unexpected corners of the Internet. Its those problems that require skills like those of Ruth Balkin, president of Penguin and the armada of Librarians she is linked to.

Ruth often says "if you cant find it on the Internet in 10 minutes to give her a call"-- If you want not just Ruth working for you but the rest of the Penguin organization contact us. Look at our website or call me at (585) 520-3539

We appreciate your responses to our newsletters. Please send us your comments. We are always interested in what you want to know.

Sincerely,

Richard Blazey
Business Metamorphosis LLC

Disclaimers

Please realize that this newsletter contains only our opinions on patent matters. We are not authorized to give legal advice. If you are seeking such advice please contact an attorney.

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