Intellectual Property Expert Group
Intellectual Property Expert Group
A recent Harvard Business Review article states the following: “Deal making is glamorous; due diligence is not”[1]. The article goes on to say: “That simple statement goes a long way toward explaining why so many companies have made so many…
I never met an inventor who didn’t want to know the value of his inventions. Accounting rules allow intangible assets to be recorded on balance sheets at their ‘highest and best uses’. The highest and best use of inventions is…
The Nokia vs. Apple patent dispute entered a new stage. Nokia recently brought up a fresh patent infringement action against Apple, alleging that Apple’s new iPad product infringes five Nokia patents. At a first glance, the recent lawsuit before the…
Negotiations about a new EU-South Korean Free Trade Agreement have taken a while, but finally parties reached an agreement. Although ambitious, nothing shocking it seems, but as soon words like “intellectual property” and “computer programs” are used in the same…
2010 fast approaching it’s a good time to reflect on the past year and come with some good intentions for the New Year. Almost a decade ago we were hyped by fear of a Millennium Bug as a potential apocalypse…
Over the years patent build up could go without repercussions for the patent “market”. Let us say the market for supply and demand for patent rights. Initially, during the 1980s and early 1990s this was because Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean…
How come licensing by European companies is largely lagging behind the US? A March 2009 OECD Study on licensing practice by European and Japanese patent holders tells the story. Zuniga and Guellec published a their study [1], “Who Licenses out…
The movie Flash Of Genius (2008), the story of Robert Kearns, who owned a chain of auto-part stores and invented the intermittent windshield wiper and made his life story of suing Detroit carmakers over patent infringement, did not make it to European…
Sadly, the IP community has for long failed to go out telling the non-IP world – not least the top management of companies and governments alike – in simple, understandable terms what crucial role IP plays and how underestimated its…
When reading this month’s issue of IAM magazine (nr. 34), we came across a remark allegedly made by a senior IP executive at a major high-tech company, (“The patent transaction market at a crossroads“) asking himself “how can you justify…
Investment in IP as an asset class has grown significantly over the last years, however it is still in its infancy. Analysis of historical returns remains difficult, as limited data are available. Therefore, it is challenging to predict how the…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Nov. 6 the first of a possible series of public hearings to explore the evolving market for intellectual property (IP). The hearings will be held beginning on December 5, 2008, in Washington, DC.…
While economic news gets worse, and most of Europe heading for recession or already in it, IP practitioners may wonder what effect those dim outlooks have on their IP practice. Attorneys, like whatever economic season we are in, will flourish…
What is an “IP strategist”? Ratings and “who’s”-lists are published indentifying who qualifies as an IP strategist, notably IAM’s “IAM Strategy 250 – The World’s Leading IP Strategists. Not clear however is what in fact a strategist does or what…
Two European trademark blogs, MarkenBlog and Class 46 referred to a publication in Germany’s business newspaper Handelsblatt on the effect of the proposed new “Bilanzrichtlinien modernisierungs gesetz” (Accounting Directives Modernizations Law). According to the two blogs this introduces new accounting…
Increasingly, big oil companies use their Intellectual Property to achieve competitive advantage over their state-owned rivals (NOC’s). Why is that so? More than 80% of the world’s oil reserves are in the hands of state-controlled companies. Big Oil is loosing…
It can be no coincidence that both in the US as well as in Europe “patent exhaustion” has been brought in the legal limelight. Last week in the US the US Supreme Court allowed certiorari in a case Quanta Computer…
Tony Fish of AMF Ventures commented in his blog on Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, who spoke about “mobile, mobile, mobile” as the next opportunity at the O’Reilly Web2Expo in San Francisco last month. It’s funny – you could pretty…
When the first patent auction by Ocean Tomo was held in San Francisco, it caused a huge media hype in the US. It looks that the next one, in London on June 1, will receive the same attention from European…
Was the first IP auction in Munich, yesterday at Kempinski hotel, a success? Well, it depends how you define “success”. Certainly the German organizers, Intellectual Property Auctions GmbH (IPA) did a great job. You must be courageous to organize an…