An SVP at a major consumer goods companies have recently expressed their frustration about the fact that he can not bring a patent infringement suit, even though his company holds 18 patents in the U.S. (and many other foreign patents) to a product that is very similar to the competitor's product. His anger is exacerbated because his company spent several years developing the product and technology protected by patents. His company was also introducing several $ MM of the product, which is a failure. The Companyremoves the product from the market after several months, but many patents in the portfolio today, and is still maintained at considerable cost. I estimate that the patent protection for this product does not cost as much as $ 500K for worldwide patent protection.
Significantly, the product did not fail the quality or performance problems. Rather, it was because they over-engineered and used lots of expensive ingredients, a fact that the plastic product made too expensivefor the target consumer market. Competitors knock-off product was successful because they have removed much of the cost of the product using less expensive ingredients, while still being able to keep aspects of his performance is desirable. Of course, if the SVP company's competitors with a roadmap for product development: Consumers want the product, but not to the higher costs. Away with much of the cost of the product with the reformulation of the plasticComposition, consumers have clamored for the product. The rival to the road to success was therefore both cheaper and less risky to significantly improve the ROI of their product development.
So why not the SVP, when the competitors go through an action against one or more of the charged 18 U.S. patents for the company so expensive? Quite simply, they cover the patents, the invention is not innovation. The difference is subtle but critical. The invention has focused on the composition of the plastic --the product, that is, how much of each ingredient was present and how this composition is manifested in the finished product. In contrast, centered on the innovation performance of the product, regardless of the plastic compound. The product has to be innovative (and desirable to the consumer), because they performed in a way no other product ever. If the competitor has the same performance from a much lower price composition of extract, the product is not surprising to learnMarket acceptance.
Unfortunately for businesses, the SVP, his 18 U.S. patents have failed, this superior performance attributes, the competitor's product levels closely address. The innovator of the product, ie, the SVP company thus has no legal recourse against the company, which now benefits from innovation. What the problem is the fact that significant costs incurred for the protection of patents received, that ultimately worthless company to protect the SVPMarket.
The reason for this situation is clear: the 18 U.S. patents have been prepared in a R & D / patent attorney "Shiloh," where the "cool factor" was as the attributes of plastic composition, not the properties of the final product. In such a science-focused world, the composition as an important feature, seen on the patent protection of gravity. (And it is clear, find the R & D and patent-silo composition innovative enough to 18 U.S. patents for each and receiveany aspect of the composition.) But as far as consumers are concerned, has the composition does not matter a bit. Thus, competitors can now copy the performance because the patents do not do to what is, in fact, the critical function of the commercial product.
Unfortunately, the patents could have covered the performance of the product. This product was truly innovative. However, the people who were on the performance of the product and its value for the consumer of the divorcedPatenting. As a result, the SVP was undertaking several $ MM of stranded costs is now a failed launch. His company is now losing market share in neighboring products because the product of the competitor gaining in popularity, a fact that compounds the pain caused by failure of the product.
After hearing my explanation for his frustration, the SVP wondered aloud, how to learn from this costly lesson patent. I told him that the answer was simple: it must dismantle the patentabilityShiloh, where his patent agents work only with its R & D team. Instead, his management of his company's patents must drive by the primary decision-making rights to patent applications, which his company, which cover these files and applications. No patent applications should be submitted if the economically relevant characteristics of the product can also be protected. In addition, prior to the submission of applications, the company should lead design team around exercises in which they ask: "IfThis product will be successful on the market, like our competitors try to do us? "The answers to this question is probably the view of the invention, which may allow greater protection to stretch, to be preserved. Such extensive protection is becoming increasingly difficult to do for a competitor to their products without incurring liability to patent infringement liability.
Of course, not all new products have truly innovative performance attributes that can serve as a basis for broadPatent protection. But if you are not against the patenting of procedures with the commercial aspect of the product as a priority for protection, it can be virtually guaranteed that the resulting patent may be too narrow, preventing competitive knock-offs. And, as my friend discovered SVP, once the patents are filed, the "damage had been done." When his company owned a business-oriented patenting, how to focus an R & D Unlike patents, they might have preventedThe competitors from some of their businesses today designed to start with the marketing of its product roadmap is not the company.
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