Over 75% of patent owners surveyed agree that a well-balanced patent portfolio reduces the risk of patent litigation
Tackling patent litigation and risk
Inbound Patent Assertion
How to deal with Inbound Patent Assertion
Economic recession can lead to an increase in litigation, from both NPEs and failing operating companies where patents are often the last asset standing. You need to be able to respond to any patent litigation quickly. With Cipher you can efficiently and effectively assess the relevance of large portfolios and be equipped with an evidence based response to the threat.
“
Whatever your perspective, no-body wants to be unprepared for litigation. In today’s environment, the risks are so large that you want to be ready. While figuring out whether you have a balanced portfolio is hard, it’s something that more and more companies are taking very seriously.
Erik Oliver, COO, Richardson Oliver Insights
Have you ever asked these questions?
How can I prepare my organisation for the patent risks ahead?
Many organisations use economic models (such as the Cipher Optimisation Model) to develop a patent strategy that anticipates and mitigate the risk posed by owners of ‘relevant to technologies’ you deploy.
How do I assess relevance when faced with a whole portfolio assertion?
Very often companies seek to extract royalties from you without a proper understanding of what their own portfolio includes or its relevance to your organisation. Cipher can cluster portfolios and efficiently compare them to patents you own and what you do, which often eliminates the vast majority of an asserted portfolio.
What’s the best way to quantify the potential to counter-assert?
Where operating companies assert their portfolios, they often fail to properly assess the counter-assertion risk. Cipher enables you to map your portfolio onto the aggressor’s technologies and revenue which often suggests an efficient and low-cost solution to what otherwise could be a protracted dispute.
If these are your issues, Cipher can help you.
How to use Cipher to handle inbound patent assertion
1
Focus on what’s relevant
Use Cipher clustering or classifiers to eliminate all patents that do not relate to technologies you use
2
Model to view the impact
Focus on specific patented technologies and combine with revenue data using the SPI model
3
Assess counter-assertion
Use Cipher to identify areas where your portfolio maps to their patented technologies and revenues
4
Actionable intelligence
Be ready to use the analysis to respond to an assertion or model outcomes
Inbound portfolio assertion threat analysis
Respond to inbound threats
How can I quickly and efficiently deal with an inbound patent assertion risk?
Want to find out more?
Explore other ways Cipher can help you with inbound patent assertion.
“You want to put every dollar invested in patents towards its highest and best use. If you anticipate increased competitive threats in the future, you want to make sure that your resource allocation is commensurate with those forward-looking threats.
Jared Engstrom, Head of Patent Development, Red Hat
How to tackle PAE risk
PAE Risk Management
Management of Patent Assertion Entity (PAE, also referred to as NPEs) risk includes taking prudent steps to avoid your patents being used to increase PAE litigation
Cipher is a proud member of LOT Network and supports LOT Network in maintaining the master list of all the 3.1 million patents owned by members and captured by the LOT umbrella. Analysis of the LOT Network patent portfolio can be viewed in the 2020 LOT Network Report.
Insights and Events
Inbound Patent Assertion – economic downturn triggering an increased risk?
View the recording of our webinar, which sought to map out a robust strategy that anyone confronted with inbound patent assertion can adopt.
Read more
Beyond portfolio optimisation – calculating the value of rightsizing
View our webinar discussing results of the Cipher Report on Portfolio Optimisation and the optimisation model that can help you balance your portfolio.
Read more
Inbound Patent Assertion: how to respond to the challenge
Patent assertion is set to increase due to the economic downturn – are you in a position to respond efficiently and effectively?
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Beyond Portfolio Optimisation IAM 100 article
Cipher features in IAM Issue 100 in an article outlining SPI models proven not only to help optimise your patent portfolio but also to support with other strategic patenting decisions.
Read more
Benchmarking Patent Portfolios Report – Key Findings
Hear from leading patent owning organisations on the importance of benchmarking your patent portfolio in our Benchmarking Study.
Read more
How Many Patents Are Enough?
Are you looking to optimise your patent portfolio but aren’t sure where to start? Read our article to uncover proven models that should act as rational and repeatable metrics to optimising your portfolio.
Read more
Case Studies
Red Hat on using the Cipher Optimisation Model
Jared Engstrom, Head of Patent Development, talks about the growth in Red Hat’s portfolio, how he has used Cipher’s custom classifiers and how the Cipher Optimisation model has improved their understanding of the competitive landscape.
Read more
Richardson Oliver Insights on the challenges of IP Teams
COO of Richardson Oliver Insights, Erik Oliver, talks about the challenges faced by IP teams with managing high value portfolios and the increased demand for both better data and better ways to communicate the value of patents.
Read more
Seagate on keeping up with technology changes
Chief Intellectual Property Counsel at Seagate, Bob Pechman explains the pressures of supporting the business during a period of rapid technological change and how Cipher helps see the patent landscape through Seagate’s own technology lens.
Read more
Inbound Patent Assertion
Is the approach different when facing NPEs?
NPEs are generally not concerned with counter-assertion risk if they have no substantive operating income. However, there will be many companies who will still seek to licence their whole portfolio, without proper consideration of the relevance to the potential licensee. Forcing a licensor to articulate which part of their portfolio, is an important first step towards dispute resolution.
What’s the difference between clustering and classification?
Clustering is a way of assessing whole portfolios, using unsupervised ML to separate the portfolio into different technology ‘buckets’. This is an essential first step when seeking to sweep away all irrelevant or unrelated patents. Classifiers map patents to specific technologies or revenue streams and are customised to your internal taxonomies or ‘technology lens’. Find out more about how Cipher classifies patents using ML.
Why should another patent owner believe our assessment?
Cipher is objective and repeatable. The accuracy of Cipher has been independently verified. Cipher subscribers are free to share reports with third parties who can validate the results or come up with evidence-based objections. In many cases the cost of manual review is exactly the reason why a sweeping portfolio-wide assertion was made in the first place.
With Cipher you can also…
Gather competitor intelligence
Understand who’s doing what by automating patent to technology mapping.
Model cross licensing
Combine patent and revenue data to determine rational licensing outcomes.
Manage your budget
Justify patent budgets to CFOs and others to communicate the impact of your investment.
Optimise your Portfolio
Ensure you have the right portfolio to meet your strategic patenting objectives.
Conduct due diligence
Automate manual reviews for efficient execution of M&A and licensing transactions.
Benchmark your portfolio
Assess your portfolio in comparison to other owners through your own technology lens.
Monetise your portfolio
Identify opportunities to create value through licensing or sale of patent assets.
Predict technology trends
Track new technologies of today and discover the unknown owners of future disruptive innovation.
Why Cipher
Trained by humans, built by machine to give you independently verified accuracy
“Cipher’s classifiers enable you to understand the patent landscape or analyze a portfolio. Combining expertise in both IP and data science, Cipher provides you with solutions to the strategic problems patent owners face, with quick and accurate results.” Erik Oliver, Richardson Oliver Insights
