IP Development
Your Fractional IP Department
Inspyris® selects a team of engineers and support staff that becomes an internal resource for managing your IP development.
IP Management
Inspyris'® expert staff of IP professionals provide soup-to-nuts IP management, tracking ideas from their inception, through searching to determine novelty, capturing invention disclosures, determining potential claims axes, and developing the necessary draft disclosures and drawings for review by counsel.
We speak "engineer", which speeds and eases required discussions with invention developers, and often generates useful implementation alternatives, some of which may be patentable as well.
We speak "patent", which speeds and eases interactions with counsel and patent examiners when necessary.
We speak "business", and understand the needs and concerns of management when it comes to questions of timing, investor relations, budget, cash flow, and return on investment.
IP Budget Analysis and Planning
The costs associated with IP development need to be anticipated and tracked to permit proper planning of cash flows and to make business decisions. We can assist with this by explaining USPTO fees and options, reviewing counsel invoices, comparing budget to actual expenses, and allocating costs to particular IP.
IP Records Management
Inspyris® digitizes and maintains on-line files of all IP-related materials generated.
Background Analysis
To avoid wasted time and expense, we undertake a rigorous process of understanding what the invention is. The background analysis process has proven useful in helping companies focus on what's novel about their products and how this novelty is a competitive advantage.
Patent Review
Our process begins with a review/analysis of your existing and pending patent position. As experienced engineers, we can help identify the current innovations that have merit for patent application, and we can make recommendations to expand the innovation and patent application beyond the innovations demonstrated in the current application.
We will also identify problem areas, with the goal of establishing a plan to correct them. Examples of problem areas include incomplete coverage of the body of the invention, prior art, embodiment issues, and poor definitions.
We also perform a literature search for published papers by the patent's inventors.
Greenfields Analysis
The "Greenfield" Analysis targets areas related to product or R&D efforts that offer additional opportunities for IP development. Greenfields Analysis extends Lay of the Land search results into alternative areas where meaningful activity was not found, but that may have strong commercial opportunities associated with them.
Brainstorming for IP Development
Inspyris'® customers have found that our patent and engineering insights help extend the patentable materials under development. Our engineering-based staff has, on average, 20+ years of experience. From brainstorming to helping inventors focus on areas that appear novel but are not well described, we capture details from the inventing process that can spell the difference between an issued patent and a final rejection by the patent office.
Inspyris® can bring a broader perspective to the table, with backgrounds in many different areas of endeavor, including entrepreneurial business development, and this often results in generation of useful new ideas.
The inclusion of an Inspyris® team engineer in a development meeting also assures synchronization between product development and IP development.
IP Roadmap
It is a very good idea to plan how your IP will develop so that you achieve your corporate goals over time. You may need to enhance some existing patents with additional claims. You may need to protect an invention that is currently in development so that you can begin discussing it with investors or potential customers. You may have several inventions that relate to each other to protect. Which do you do first? What is the best way of achieving each step?
If you want to minimize expense and delay, you should plan well ahead of time, and then work your plan with defined milestones, goals and schedules. Doing so avoids costly mistakes, keeps the "panic level" down, and allows you to budget for the costs so there are no surprises.
The exercise of creating an IP Roadmap establishes a joint understanding of the tasks, responsibilities, milestones, and goals of the IP development effort across the involved corporate divisions.
Additional Development and Procedural Tasks
Inspyris® properly documents disclosures, collecting and archiving invention paperwork, preparing draft invention disclosures and optimizing the inventor's time by interfacing with attorneys or staff as needed.
Inspyris'® staff tracks and maintains copies of filings, prior art, search results, action items, and upcoming deadlines using our web-based systems and customer-extranet.
Good results come from good practices and good control. The creation of valuable IP is a methodical process with measurable control points.
IP Procedural support involves Inspyris® assisting with an assessment of your current practices and how well these are being followed. We make suggestions for improved practices, particularly in areas that are introducing risk. In some cases this takes the form of a new "best practices". Our goal is to have your IP practices comply with ISO and SEI guidelines.