West Hawai'i SBDC: Patents Workshop

PATENT APPLICATIONS, COMMERCIALIZATION, AND ENFORCEMENT
Three, 45-minute sessions.
1. The Patent Application Process
2. Patent Commercialization, with a focus on Licensing
3. Patent Enforcement and Defense Session 1 explains the contents of a patent application, how to draft patent claims, office actions, and responses to office actions, and recognizing when you need professional help with USPTO Rules or with drafting. Patent claims are a different form of English that most business lawyers cannot understand.

Session 2. Inventions are the core of a patent application, but how to commercialize an invention is the core of patent claims. The goal of a patent application is not to receive an impressive, frameable document to hang in the conference room, but to receive patent claims that can be monetized. Most issued patents fail to earn the cost of patent application and prosecution to patent issuance because the claims cannot be monetized.

Session 3. If you have a profitable patented invention, there will be copycats, particularly China-based copycats. The flip side of profitable patents is receiving cease and desist letters asserting your patent infringes another party’s patent. Enforcing your IP rights against infringers, and defeating false claims asserting your infringement, can be done cost-effectively, which means you can stay in business.

Learning Goals: Recognizing when you have protectable IP, and avoiding giving it away. Focus on IP from a small business perspective, esp., the role of IP in differentiation of products and services from those of competitors, and how to protect your IP All businesses strive to meet the needs of customers... that's what business is about, but how those "customer solutions" are designed and delivered may include protectible IP. Improvements in products come from any sources, but there are two primary sources: changes in technology, and changes in, or a better understanding of, customer requirements. If your IP is protectible, such as product names, songs, marketing slogans, methods of making and using products, and the design of products, and you don't protect your IP, you've giving it to competitors.