Why It’s Important to Have
a Patent Portfolio Review
An individual’s or business’s ideas, inventions, and creative endeavors are protected by the U.S. Constitution and ensuing legislation regarding trademarks, copyrights, and patents. However, only obtaining official protection through the legal system can sometimes expose you to infringement and illegal reproduction if you fail to exercise due diligence.
Having an attorney conduct a patent portfolio review can provide various benefits, including protecting against those who might infringe, helping you control market share, granting you leverage in negotiations for licensing, and overall acting as a defensive tool. A patent portfolio review will typically encompass the totality of your patents, patent applications, and ideas that may be turned into patents for your business.
If you’re in the Kansas City, Missouri, metro area, including Johnson County, Kansas, and Jackson County, Missouri, contact Ream Law Firm, L.L.C. for all your patent questions and needs, including a portfolio review.
Dale J. Ream has been a registered patent attorney for more than 25 years. He has also built up valuable relationships with those in engineering, prototyping, and domestic and international manufacturing that can prove valuable to you and your business.
What Is a Patent Portfolio Review?
As mentioned above, a patent portfolio review not only looks at the patents you have in place and how best to protect and advance them, but also at other intellectual property (IP) that you and your business may need to advance and protect as patents, trademarks, or copyrights.
The review will also look at company policies and practices that may be exposing your patents and IP to infringement. It is thus a comprehensive look at how you can best protect your most valuable assets from falling into the hands of others and robbing you of what’s due to you in the marketplace.
Why Is a Portfolio Review Important?
A patent in the U.S. is one important line of defense against infringers, but other countries may have their own patent laws and barriers. A portfolio review can help you identify further steps to take to protect your patents and IP internationally.
A patent review can also identify other potential patents that you may be eligible for based on your current operating procedures, mechanisms, and systems in place. A portfolio review can also address important issues such as trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and privacy laws that you may be overlooking or paying too little attention to.
A portfolio review can also uncover internal procedures and policies that may be exposing your patents and other IP to infringement and thus help ensure maximum protection. This includes examining your company’s employee handbooks, employment agreements, nondisclosure agreements, operating procedures, annual reports, and even routine emails. Any of these, or a combination of these, maybe exposing your intellectual property and patents to infringement by outsiders.
The review can thus reveal much-needed internal controls and employee training that can take the protection of your IP to the proper level of security.
Another benefit of a patent review is to determine if you’ve added improvements to your original patent(s) that may require further patent protection before someone else grabs onto your advancement and protects it.
A portfolio review, especially one done by Dale J. Ream, can also lead to new marketing, manufacturing, partnering, and licensing opportunities. Dale J. Ream has built up valuable connections throughout the world that you can use to advance your intellectual property and patents for maximum exposure and profit.
Finally, it’s important to observe the importance of notice protocols, which means that you must put competitors on notice that you own a patent. Part of enforcing your patent rights is proving in court that the infringer or copycat knew you had a patent. The past procedure was to put a patent number on the product, but now many businesses have resorted to an online listing of patents. A portfolio review may uncover better methods of providing notice protocols.
Get the Experienced Guidance You Need
To protect your patents and intellectual property to the maximum degree, contact Ream Law Firm, L.L.C. for a portfolio review.
With over 25 years of experience in patent law, Dale J. Ream will be able to survey your patents, intellectual property, and internal controls to help maximize your protections. He can also help you take your product or idea to the next level through the contacts he has built up through the years. Contact him today for a consultation if you live anywhere in the Kansas City, Missouri, metro area.