misanthrope

In Nortel's recent bankrupcy, the liquidation of the IP assets led to a bidding war. Google offered $900M for the patents; Apple and Microsoft created an alliance (with RIM, Sony, EMC, Ericsson) to offer $4.5B for the same patents^. Certainly there was a great disparity in these bid prices. How can you objectively determine the value of a portfolio and patent duration. Let the tools at IPstreet.com help you.

In your written patent application you must fully describe your invention to such a degree that a person skilled in the same field as the invention could make or use that invention. A person skilled in the same field as the invention should be able to read your patent application and understand it. The inventor must be able to make claims about his/her invention in clear and definite terms.The part of a patent application that describes and reveals your invention is called the specification and includes various types of descriptions, claims, and drawings depending on the type of invention and type of patent involved. Remember, ideas alone cannot be patented. In other words - you can't just write, "I have an idea for a new alarm clock." You must be able to describe how your alarm works so that an expert in alarm clocks would understand how it would work and that it would indeed work. It's like a recipe ... a good cook should be able to produce your invention based on your patent. As a novice, to file your first patent application yourself is often unwise. However, you could write your own descriptions and then pass them over to your attorney. The attorney could use your writings as a guide and a time-saver, and that will save you money. You should present your inventor's logbook, prototype, and any prior art searches to the attorney. You must write a complete and thorough description of your intellectual property as you cannot add any new information to your patent application once it is filed. You can only make changes to the subject matter that could be reasonably inferred from the original drawings or description.

If the complexities of legalities seems simple, you may want to consider becoming a patent agent or patent attorney. If you are a do-it-yourselfer (DIY), you may want to get David Pressman's book "Patent it Yourself" or David Hitchcock's book "Patent Searching Made Easy". If you are like the rest of us, this process does not seem simple. Sure it may cost some money to engage someone to guide you through this process, so you need to carefully consider your innovation in context of (1) is it patentable? and (2) is it a viable business opportunity? It may, however, be in your best interest to learn as much as you can about the system and then hire a competent patent attorney to get the job done. Just think what it would cost to great idea, poorly patented, which may ultimately cost you "like a bigillion dollars in lost royalties or something like that."