What is IP licensing?
IP licensing explained as a process — the six stages from identifying a licensee to signing, who does what, how long it takes, and where deals fail.
Patent guides
What a patent is worth, when the fees fall due, how to sell one, and what eight million USPTO records say about which patents actually survive.
Licensing & Royalties
What is an IP license?
The IP licence as a document — every clause that matters, what each one does, the types of licence, and the terms that quietly decide how much the agreement is worth.
Patent royalty rates: what they are and how they are set
Typical patent royalty rates by industry, the base the rate applies to, how the 25% rule and Georgia-Pacific factors work, and why the base matters more than the percentage.
Patent license agreement: from negotiation to termination
The patent licence agreement as a live relationship — negotiating sequence, execution formalities, recording, royalty administration, audits, disputes and how it ends.
Intellectual property licensing across all IP types
How licensing differs across patents, trademarks, copyright, designs and trade secrets — what each right actually permits, how long it lasts, and why mixed licences need care.
Patent Basics
What can be patented?
The four statutory categories, the three requirements, and what the courts have excluded. Why software and diagnostics are hardest, with worked examples of what passes and fails.
What are patents?
A patent is a time-limited right to exclude others from an invention. What the three types cover, what a patent does and does not give you, and what happens to most of them.
Types of patents: utility, design and plant
The three US patent types compared — what each protects, how long it lasts, what it costs, and which one you need. Plus the application types that are not patent types.
Patent pending: what it means and what it protects
Patent pending means an application is filed, not that a patent exists. What it protects, what provisional rights are worth, how to use the marking, and the penalty for false marking.
Sale & Transfer
Submit invention ideas for royalties: how it really works
How company idea-submission programmes work, what the waivers actually say, which firms genuinely pay royalties, and how to tell a real programme from a fee-extraction business.
Sell my idea: what is actually possible
Whether an unpatented idea can be sold, what companies actually buy, how submission programmes work, and the realistic routes from idea to payment.
Patent holder: rights, duties and how to find one
What a patent holder actually owns, the rights that come with it, the duties that come with it, how co-ownership works, and how to find the current holder of any patent.
Patent brokers: what they do and what they cost
What a patent broker actually does, how commissions and minimums work, why most small holders are turned away, and how to evaluate a broker before signing an exclusive mandate.
Patent assignment: transferring ownership properly
What a patent assignment is, what the document must contain, why recording within three months matters, and the chain-of-title defects that surface years later in diligence.
Patent assignment database: how to search ownership records
How to use USPTO Assignment Search to trace patent ownership, what the fields mean, what the database does not contain, and how to read a chain of title from the records.
Patents for sale: how the market actually works
Who buys patents, what determines the price, how a sale is structured, what brokers charge, and why most saleable patents are allowed to lapse instead.
How to sell my patent
The steps to sell a patent, what buyers ask for at diligence, how the assignment works, what brokers charge, and why the maintenance fee deadline is the deadline that matters.
Fees & Renewal
Small entity status: who qualifies and what it saves
Who qualifies for small and micro entity status, what the 60% and 80% discounts are worth across a patent's life, when status must be rechecked, and what happens if you claim it wrongly.
Patent annuity: how renewal fees work outside the US
What patent annuities are, how they differ from US maintenance fees, why they escalate every year, what a family costs across its life, and how to prune before the cost compounds.
How much does a patent cost?
Every cost from provisional to expiry — USPTO fees, attorney fees, maintenance fees and foreign filing — with worked totals for a solo inventor, a startup and a company.
Patent renewal: how it works in the US and abroad
The US has no annual patent renewal — it has three maintenance fees. What renewal costs here and abroad, when annuities fall due, and whether a renewal service earns its fee.
Patent portfolio pruning: deciding what to keep
How to review a portfolio at each maintenance fee deadline, which patents to release, what the survival data says about normal attrition, and how to prune without losing value.
Patent maintenance fees: cost, deadlines and the decision
The three USPTO patent maintenance fees, what each costs at every entity size, when the windows open and close, and worked examples of what happens when one is missed.
Abandoned patent: what it means and whether it can be revived
An abandoned patent has lapsed for unpaid maintenance fees and entered the public domain. How it happens, whether revival works, what intervening rights cost, and how to check status.
Filing & Applications
Provisional patent application: what it does and what it does not
A provisional buys twelve months of priority without consuming term. What it must contain to be worth anything, what it costs, and the ways it fails when badly drafted.
The patent application process
Every stage from drafting to grant, with real USPTO timings, what happens at each office action, the deadlines that cannot be missed, and where applications actually stall.
Validity & Proceedings
Prior art: what counts and how it is used
What qualifies as prior art under 35 U.S.C. 102, how anticipation differs from obviousness, what a prior art search covers, and whether your own disclosure counts against you.
Patent invalidation: the routes and what each costs
Four routes to invalidate a patent — IPR, PGR, ex parte reexamination and district court. Which grounds each allows, what the burden is, and what estoppel you take on.
The meaning of patentable
What patentable means in law rather than in ordinary use, the four conditions an invention must meet, and why a granted patent can still be held unpatentable years later.
Inter partes review: what an IPR is and when to file one
IPR is the PTAB proceeding to cancel patent claims over prior art. The one-year bar, the institution decision, what estoppel costs you, and why institution rates have collapsed.
Term & Expiry
Patent term extension: how PTE restores lost time
How Patent Term Extension works under Hatch-Waxman, the calculation, the caps, the 60-day deadline, why only one patent per product qualifies, and how PTE differs from PTA.
Patent term calculator: how to work out any expiry date
A step-by-step method for calculating a patent's expiry date by hand, the six inputs it needs, where each one is printed, and the errors that produce wrong answers.
How long will a patent last?
How to work out how much life a specific patent has left — the filing date to start from, the adjustments that move it, and what the remaining years are actually worth.
How long does it take to get a patent?
Real USPTO pendency figures, what happens during the long silence after filing, why some art units take twice as long as others, and the four ways to make it faster.
How long can a patent last?
The theoretical maximum term of a US patent — how PTA, PTE and a provisional year stack, what the record holders look like, and why almost nothing gets close.
Patent term adjustment: how PTA works and how to check yours
PTA compensates for USPTO delay and is printed on the face of your patent. How the A, B and C delays are calculated, what applicant delay costs, and how to dispute a wrong figure.
Patent expiration date: how to calculate it
The 20-year date is the starting point, not the answer. How PTA, PTE, terminal disclaimers and unpaid fees move a patent's real expiration date, and how to check any patent.
How long does a patent last?
Twenty years from filing, but only 41.4% of US patents get there. Worked examples of what each maintenance fee decision costs, when the windows fall, and how term is adjusted.
Do patents expire?
Every patent expires, and most expire early. The two ways a patent ends, how to check whether one has, what the public domain means in practice, and the 58.6% that never reach term.
Prosecution
Patent prosecution: what it is and how it differs from litigation
Patent prosecution is getting a patent granted, not enforcing one. The stages from filing to issue, what each costs, how long it takes, and how prosecution choices shape enforcement.
USPTO office action: what it is and how to respond
An office action is the examiner's written rejection or objection. The difference between non-final and final, what each rejection type requires, response deadlines, and what extensions cost.
Inventorship: who counts as an inventor and how to correct it
Inventorship is a legal question about conception, not contribution. Who qualifies, why co-inventors each own the whole patent, and how to correct errors under 35 U.S.C. 256.
Portfolio & IP Management
Patent portfolio management: the operating cadence
How to run a patent portfolio operationally — the review cycle, the four-way decision at each fee window, how to rank patents cheaply, and what a defensible budget looks like.
IP portfolio management across all rights
Managing patents, trademarks, copyright and trade secrets as one portfolio — what to record, how the renewal cadences differ, who owns the decisions, and where budgets actually go.
Infringement & Enforcement
Patent infringement: what counts and what happens next
What legally counts as patent infringement, how direct and indirect liability differ, what damages are available, and what to do when a demand letter arrives.
Patent claim chart: how to build one
A claim chart maps every element of a patent claim to a feature of an accused product or a prior art reference. How to build one, what makes it credible, and where they are used.
Doctrine of equivalents: how it works and what limits it
The doctrine extends claims beyond their literal wording. How the function-way-result and insubstantial-differences tests work, and how prosecution history estoppel constrains them.
Inventors & Ideas
Invention ideas: from concept to owned asset
Where invention ideas actually come from, how to test one before spending money, what an idea is worth at each stage, and how to avoid the invention promotion industry.
How to patent an idea
You cannot patent an idea — only a specific implementation. What has to exist before you file, the eight steps from disclosure to grant, what each costs, and the scams to avoid.