Patent portfolio

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A patent portfolio is a collection of patents owned by a single entity, such as an individual or corporation. The patents may be related or unrelated.

The monetary benefits of a patent portfolio include a market monopoly position for the portfolio holder and revenue from licensing the intellectual property. Non monetary benefits include strategic advantages like first-mover advantages and defense against rival portfolio holders.

Because patents have a fixed lifespan, elements of a portfolio of patents constantly expire and enter the public domain.

The value of a corporation's patent portfolio can be a significant fraction of the overall value of the corporation. Ocean Tomo LLC, for example, has recently introduced an index of corporations whose market value is governed in large part by their patent portfolio value. The index is called "Ocean Tomo 300™ Patent Index". [1]

As another example, the European Patent Office has recently acquired IPscore, a software application, developed by the Danish Patent and Trademark Office, the purpose of which is to estimate "the economic value of patents and development projects". [2]

  1. ^ Ocean Tomo web site, Ocean Tomo 300™ Patent Index. Consulted on November 27, 2006.
  2. ^ European Patent Office web site, The European Patent Office acquires IPscore®, the patent portfolio evaluation tool, Official Communication, December 29, 2006, consulted on December 30, 2006.

Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.