Save money, avoid missteps with research, Intellectual Property expert tells electronics symposium
Are you thinking about filing a patent application? If you are like most small entities, you are wondering about cost.
A good rule of thumb is to budget about $10,000 for attorney, prior art research, drawings, USPTO filings and publication fees. Figure about the same for marketing and licensing.
But this is all money down the drain if you find out later that published prior art already existed, or worse, if your competitor finds out, says strategic patent expert Steve Pearson.
Spending a fraction of your budget on comprehensive prior art research can accelerate your innovation and tip you off to competitors in your space, the founder of the Pearson Strategy Group explained at the recent Central Texas Electronics Association Symposium in Austin.
Professional patent research and analysis requires expertise and tools most business people are not aware of. And high quality results can help inventors and entrepreneurs understand their competition and their opportunities, he said.
Pearson shared his experience in helping companies understand how to shift from tactical to strategic thinking when researching innovation and intellectual property. He explained how targeted research and automated alerts can be leveraged to obtain timely information about competitors and trends.
He also helped the roughly 100 participants understand how to increase innovation and protect their business models. Pearson shared how monitoring for disruptive, emerging and adjacent technologies can both increase opportunities and minimize risks.
By connecting relationships between technology, intellectual property and markets, Pearson helped audience members see how these aspects must work together to achieve positive, protected growth.
He also shared tips about how to justify your financial return and scale the dollars spent on prior art research according to your risk and gain.
Pearson even had advice for when seeking a patent is not a good idea. (Think mobile phone apps with short lifecycles.)
If you’d like to have Steve present to your group, in person, or via webinar, contact him at 512.466.1450, or via email at steve@pearsonstrategy.com or download the presentation here.
Picture credit: Wikimedia (Unbiassed)
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