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 pools: how they work
What a patent pool is, how members and licensees benefit, the competition-law constraints that shape them, and where pools work well and badly.
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.
Types of IP licences
The licence types across intellectual property — exclusive, sole, non-exclusive, field-of-use, territorial, cross-licences and compulsory licences, and what each means.
Patent royalties: what you receive and how to check it
Patent royalties from the recipient's side — how a payment is built up, reading a royalty report, what quietly reduces it, audit rights, and when a stream is worth selling.
IP license: reading one you have been sent
How to review an IP licence somebody else drafted — the clauses to find first, what a first draft optimises for, what to push back on, and what to fix before signing.
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.
Utility patent: scope, term and cost
What a utility patent covers, how it differs from design and plant patents, the 20-year term and three maintenance fees, what it costs across its life, and when it is the right choice.
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.
AI tools for patent work: what they can and cannot do
What AI tools actually do well in patent work — searching, classification, claim charting, valuation — and where they fail, plus the disclosure duties that apply when you use them.
Pharmaceutical patents: exclusivity, generics and the cliff
How drug patents work — the types filed around a single product, the Orange Book, Paragraph IV challenges, regulatory exclusivity running alongside patent term, and what happens at the cliff.
Patented: definition and what it actually means
What patented means in law, why it is not the same as patentable or patent pending, what a patented product owner can and cannot do, and how to verify a claim that something is patented.
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.
Patent number: how to read, find and search one
What each part of a patent number means, how to tell utility from design and reissue, how to find a patent from a product, and how to check whether it is still in force.
A patent is pending: what it means for you
What it means when a product says a patent is pending, whether you can copy it, how to find the application, and what happens if it eventually grants.
Patent attorneys: what they do and how to choose one
What a patent attorney does, how they differ from patent agents and general lawyers, what each stage costs, how to check credentials, and when you genuinely need one.
How to cite a patent
Patent citation formats across APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE, Bluebook and USPTO practice, what elements every citation needs, how to cite applications and foreign patents, and the errors that break lookups.
How do you get a name patent? You don't — here's what you need
You cannot patent a name. What you actually need is a trademark, how it differs from a patent, what registration costs and takes, and how to protect a name properly.
Can you patent something and make it free?
Whether you can patent an invention and let everyone use it, how open patent licences and pledges work, what defensive publication does instead, and which route fits which goal.
Patent laws: the framework and who administers it
The legal framework governing patents — the statute, the offices that grant them, the courts that decide disputes, international treaties, and the current areas of contention.
SEP patents: standard essential patents and FRAND
What makes a patent standard essential, what a FRAND commitment obliges, how essentiality is assessed, and why SEP disputes run differently from ordinary infringement.
Patent protection: what it gives you and what it costs
What patent protection actually consists of across a patent's life, what it does not cover, what it costs to maintain, and when other forms of IP protection fit better.
Patent priority date: what it is and why it matters
What a priority date is, how provisionals and continuations establish it, why it decides what counts as prior art, and how priority claims fail when disclosure is thin.
Patent of design: what a design patent covers
What a design patent covers — ornamental appearance only — how the drawings define the claim, the ordinary observer test, and how it differs from utility patents and trade dress.
Patent family: what it is and how to read one
What a patent family is — continuations, divisionals, CIPs and foreign counterparts — how expiry works across it, and how to read a family view in Espacenet or Google Patents.
Manufacturing a prototype: IP considerations
The IP side of building a prototype — when disclosure to a manufacturer forfeits rights, what an NDA does and does not do, ownership of design contributions, and filing timing.
How to get a design patent
The process for obtaining a design patent — searching, preparing drawings, filing, examination and issue — with costs, timing and the drawing decisions that set your scope.
Can you renew a patent?
Why patents cannot be renewed or extended beyond their term, what maintenance fees actually do, the narrow exceptions, and what to do as expiry approaches.
Utility patent examples across technologies
Worked utility patent examples — mechanical, chemical, electrical and software — showing how claims differ by technology and what each type must overcome.
Patent claim: anatomy and how to read one
The anatomy of a patent claim — preamble, transition, body — plus independent versus dependent claims, transition words, and how to read a claim against a product.
Intellectual property agreement types
The main IP agreement types — assignment, licence, NDA, joint development, employment and consulting — what each does, and which one fits the situation you are in.
When can a service innovation be patented?
Whether a service or business method can be patented — how Alice applies, what survives and what does not, how to reframe a service claim as a technical mechanism, and the alternatives.
Patents on pharmaceutical drugs and what they cost
Why patented drugs cost what they do, how patents and regulatory exclusivity interact, when generics can enter, and what actually determines the date prices fall.
Patented products: what it means to buy one
What a patent marking on a product means to a purchaser — exhaustion, resale, repair versus reconstruction, importing, and what a patent actually covers on a product.
Patent drawings: requirements and how many views
What patent drawings must comply with under 37 CFR 1.84 — line work, margins, shading, reference numerals, how many views are needed, and why design patent drawings are the claim.
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.
Patent rights: what they are and what they are not
What patent rights actually confer — the right to exclude rather than to practise — plus which activities they cover, why they are geography-specific, and how they end.
Patent monetization: the routes available
The ways a patent can generate value — practising, selling, licensing, enforcement, defensive use and deliberate lapse — and what each costs, returns and requires.
Patent monetization strategies: choosing and sequencing
How to choose between monetization routes — matching strategy to your situation, sequencing routes over a patent's life, and the decision points that close options.
Patent auctions: how they work
How patent auctions run — formats, reserves, catalogues and timing — which assets suit them, and the visible downside when a lot fails to sell.
IP marketplace: how patents are listed and sold
How IP marketplaces work — listing platforms, broker networks, auctions and direct approaches — what each suits, and why most patent sales happen outside public listings.
Invention companies: what they do and how to check one
The different kinds of invention company — promotion firms, licensing agents, brokers, product development houses — how they charge, and the disclosures federal law requires.
How to purchase a patent
The buyer's process for acquiring a patent — finding assets, verifying status and ownership, running diligence, pricing, and recording the assignment correctly.
Companies that buy patents
The types of buyer in the patent market — operating companies, NPEs, defensive aggregators, competitors and licensees — what each wants and how to reach them.
Patent brokers without upfront fees
How contingency and no-upfront-fee patent brokerage works, what the commission covers, the questions that separate real brokers from submission services, and what to verify.
Intellectual property assignment across right types
How assigning IP differs by right type — patents, trademarks, copyright and trade secrets — including recordation, goodwill, termination rights and the clauses that fail.
Assignment search: finding who owns a patent now
How to search USPTO assignment records — building queries, handling name variants and corporate changes, reading reel and frame numbers, and what the records do not capture.
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.
Provisional patent fee and total cost
What a provisional patent application costs — the USPTO fee at each entity size, what drafting adds, and why the fee is the smallest part of the decision.
Patent docketing software: how to evaluate it
How to evaluate patent docketing software — date calculation accuracy, USPTO integration, escalation, reporting and export — and why accuracy outranks every other feature.
Patent docketing services: outsourcing deadline management
What outsourced patent docketing services do, how they charge, what liability they carry, how to verify their work, and what has to stay in-house whatever you outsource.
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.
Design patent cost: what it actually runs to
What a design patent costs — USPTO fees at each entity size, drawing costs, prosecution, and why the lifetime total is a fraction of a utility patent.
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.
Patent annuity fees by country
How renewal costs compare across jurisdictions — which countries charge annually, which charge during pendency, and how a multi-country family accumulates cost.
Patent maintenance: running it as a practice
The administrative side of keeping patents alive — who is responsible, how to docket the windows, entity status checks at every payment, and how to make each deadline a decision.
Patent annuity payment services
What annuity payment services do, how they charge, what insurance actually covers, the questions that separate providers, and how to verify a payment was actually made.
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.
Patent requirements: what you need to file and to qualify
The two sets of patent requirements — the statutory tests an invention must pass, and the documents, forms and fees an application must contain to be accepted.
Patent filing services: who does what
The range of patent filing services — registered attorneys and agents, form-filling services, online platforms and invention promoters — what each does and what to check.
Patent application publication at eighteen months
Why applications publish at eighteen months, what publication means for secrecy and provisional rights, how to request non-publication, and what the invisible window costs everyone.
Patent application forms: what to file and how
The forms a patent application requires — Application Data Sheet, inventor declaration, information disclosure statement, fee transmittal and entity certification — and what each does.
Non-provisional patent: what it is and when to file one
What a non-provisional patent application is, how it differs from a provisional, what it must contain, what it costs, and the twelve-month deadline that governs it.
International patent law: how filing abroad works
How patent protection works across countries — the Paris Convention, the PCT, regional systems, national phase entry, and why there is no such thing as a world patent.
How to write a patent application
How to actually write a patent application — what goes in each section, how to describe alternatives, how to draft claims at several levels, and the phrases that cost you scope.
How to file a patent
The filing process end to end — searching, choosing provisional or non-provisional, preparing the application, submitting through Patent Center, and the deadlines that follow.
Non-provisional patent application: a worked example
What goes in a non-provisional application, section by section, with a worked example — the specification, claims, drawings, and the forms that accompany them.
Provisional patent: correcting the misnomer
There is no such thing as a provisional patent. What a provisional application actually is, what it gives you, what it does not, and the mistakes the misnomer causes.
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.
PTAB Trial Practice Guide: what it contains
What the PTAB Trial Practice Guide covers — petition and response requirements, page and word limits, discovery, expert evidence, hearings, and how it interacts with precedent.
PTAB Director review after Arthrex
Director review of PTAB decisions — why it exists after Arthrex, what can be reviewed, how to request it, and why it has reshaped discretionary denial practice.
Chinese patentability search: CNIPA and Chinese prior art
How to search Chinese patent prior art — CNIPA databases, machine translation limits, utility models, and why Chinese art is systematically under-searched.
PTAB precedential decisions: how the precedent works
How PTAB decisions become binding — the designation process, informative versus precedential, Director review, and where to find what currently governs.
Prior art: the definition under 35 U.S.C. 102
The statutory definition of prior art — what each subsection of §102 covers, which dates govern, how the grace period works, and the exceptions that remove a disclosure from the art.
Is it patentable? A decision test
A short decision test for whether your invention is patentable — seven questions in order, what each one eliminates, and what to do at each failure point.
What is an IPR?
IPR means two different things — inter partes review, a PTAB proceeding, and intellectual property rights generally. Which is meant, how to tell from context, and what each involves.
Reexamination: reopening a granted patent
What reexamination is, the two types that survive, the substantial new question standard, how it compares to PTAB trials, and when it is the right route.
PTAB: the Patent Trial and Appeal Board
What the PTAB is, the proceedings it hears, who the judges are, how a trial runs, what it costs, and why institution rates have moved so sharply.
PTAB discretionary denial
Why the PTAB declines to institute petitions that meet the merits threshold — parallel litigation, serial petitions, previously considered art — and what the shifting rates mean in practice.
Prosecution history estoppel
How amendments made during prosecution surrender claim scope permanently, the Festo presumption and its three rebuttals, argument-based estoppel, and what it means for drafting.
Post-grant review
What post-grant review allows that inter partes review does not, the nine-month deadline, the more-likely-than-not threshold, the broader estoppel, and when it is worth using.
Patent invalidity search
How an invalidity search differs from a patentability search, why the priority date governs everything, where the best references hide, what it costs, and how to brief one.
Non-patent literature as prior art
What counts as non-patent literature, why examiners search it less thoroughly, where the productive sources are, how to establish publication dates, and why NPL decides so many invalidity cases.
Ex parte reexamination
How ex parte reexamination works — who can file, the substantial new question standard, the limited requester role, why there is no estoppel, and when it beats an IPR.
Claim construction and the Markman hearing
How courts decide what patent claim terms mean — the Phillips hierarchy, intrinsic versus extrinsic evidence, why construction usually decides the case, and how to prepare for it.
Prosecution
Patent workflow: how an invention moves through an organisation
The end-to-end patent workflow inside an organisation — capture, triage, filing decision, prosecution, and the renewal loop — with the handoffs where things actually break.
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.
Invention disclosure: the form and the process
What an invention disclosure form captures, why the date and witness matter, how organisations triage disclosures, and what belongs in the form before counsel sees it.
Continuation and divisional applications
What continuations and divisionals do, when each is available, why the window closes at issue, and how both differ from a continuation-in-part.
CIP patent: what a continuation-in-part does
What a continuation-in-part is, why its claims carry two different priority dates, when a CIP is the right filing, and the trap that catches most applicants.
Patent prosecution services: scoping an engagement
What prosecution service providers actually offer, the fee models, how to scope drafting and responses, what to keep in-house, and the questions that separate providers.
Valuation
Patent valuation services: what you get and what to ask
What patent valuation providers deliver, the methods they use, what a defensible report contains, and the questions that separate a real valuation from a number.
Patent citations: forward, backward and what they mean
What patent citations are, the difference between forward and backward citations, why examiner and applicant citations differ, and what citation counts do and do not indicate.
IP due diligence: what to check and in what order
The IP due diligence checklist — chain of title, in-force status, encumbrances, employee and contractor assignments — ordered by what kills deals fastest.
Intellectual property valuation beyond patents
How IP valuation differs by right type — patents, trademarks, copyright and trade secrets — the three standard approaches, and why the same method gives different answers.
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.
Patent life: the full arc from filing to expiry
The whole life of a patent as one sequence — filing, pendency, grant, three renewal decisions, and expiry or sale — with what happens and what it costs at each stage.
How long do medical patents last?
Why medical patents last longer than the twenty-year term suggests — Patent Term Extension, regulatory exclusivity, and why drugs and devices give different answers.
How long are design patents good for?
Design patents last fifteen years from grant with no maintenance fees, which is why they almost always run their full term — unlike utility patents, where 58.6% are abandoned early.
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 strategy: matching protection to the business
How to build an IP strategy — deciding what to protect and by which right, where to file, what to release, and how the strategy changes as a business grows.
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.
Patent portfolio: how one is structured
What a patent portfolio actually is — families and continuations, jurisdictional layers, core versus peripheral rights, and how the structure determines what it is worth.
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.
Claim chart examples with real evidence rows
Worked claim chart examples — a clean infringement chart, one with an unverified gap, an invalidity chart, and what separates a usable chart from an unusable one.
Willful infringement and enhanced damages
What makes infringement willful, the Halo standard, why knowledge alone is not enough, how opinions of counsel work as a defence, and what conduct after notice matters.
Patent litigation updates: how to track developments
How to keep current on patent litigation — which sources matter, how to monitor dockets and precedential decisions, and what to watch if you own or might infringe patents.
Patent infringement search: finding who uses your invention
How to search for infringers of your own patent — the reverse of a clearance search. Where to look, how to build the evidence, and what the search cannot tell you.
Patent infringement damages: how they are calculated
How patent damages are calculated — reasonable royalty, lost profits, the Panduit factors, apportionment, the six-year limit, marking, and enhancement for willfulness.
Patent infringement analysis: the full methodology
The complete workflow for an infringement analysis — verifying status, construing claims, mapping elements, testing equivalents, checking estoppel, and producing an opinion.
ITC patent litigation under Section 337
How Section 337 investigations at the International Trade Commission differ from district court — speed, exclusion orders, no damages, the domestic industry requirement, and when they fit.
Product mapping methodology for patent infringement
A repeatable method for mapping a product against patent claims — parsing the claim, gathering evidence, building the chart, grading each element, and knowing when the mapping is finished.
Patent violation: the term and what it means
Patent violation is the everyday word for infringement, which is the legal term. What actually counts, whether it is criminal, what the penalties are, and what to do if accused.
Patent trolls: what they are and how to respond
What a patent troll actually is, why the label is contested, how the business model works, what a demand letter is worth, and the response options ranked by cost.
Patent prosecution vs litigation
How prosecution and litigation differ — the forum, the parties, the standards of proof, who does the work, what each costs, and how prosecution decisions constrain litigation years later.
Patent marking: rules, damages and false marking
How patent marking affects damages, what constitutes constructive notice, how virtual marking works, the false marking penalty, and who has to mark what.
Patent litigation: process, cost and timeline
How a patent case actually runs — pleadings, claim construction, discovery, expert work and trial — what each stage costs, why most cases settle, and the alternatives worth exhausting first.
Patent infringement examples
Worked examples of what does and does not infringe — literal infringement, missing elements, equivalents, method claims, indirect liability and exhaustion, each mapped element by element.
Patent dispute: resolution routes before litigation
The routes for resolving a patent dispute — design-around, negotiation, mediation, arbitration, PTAB challenge and declaratory judgment — with what each costs and when it fits.
What it takes to infringe a patent
What legally counts as infringing a patent — the all-elements rule, direct and indirect liability, the acts covered, the defences available, and why similarity is not the test.
Contributory patent infringement
What contributory infringement requires under §271(c), how it differs from inducement, the staple article defence, and why knowledge is the element that decides most cases.
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 invent something new
How inventions actually get made — starting from a problem rather than an idea, testing novelty before spending, and the sequence from concept to a protected asset.
I have an invention — what do I do now?
The first steps after having an invention — what to do before spending anything, where free help exists, and what to avoid while you work out whether it is worth pursuing.
How to raise money for an invention
The funding routes available to inventors — grants, licensing, crowdfunding, investors and revenue — and the IP mistakes each one can cause if the sequence is wrong.
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.
How to patent a phrase (you cannot — here is what to do)
Phrases, sayings and slogans cannot be patented. What actually protects them — trademarks — what registration costs and takes, and when a phrase is protectable at all.
How to patent a game
What can and cannot be protected in a game — rules, mechanics, components, artwork and names — and which right covers each, with the eligibility problem explained.
How do you become an inventor?
What actually makes someone an inventor — domain knowledge, problem-finding and persistence — plus the legal definition, and what the first year realistically looks like.
Where invention activity is growing
Which technology areas are seeing rising patent filing activity, how to read classification trends yourself, and why crowded fields are harder rather than better to enter.
How to patent an idea for free or cheaply
What is genuinely free in the patent system, what is merely cheap, the assistance programmes that exist, micro entity fees, and where cutting cost destroys value.
Clearance & Freedom to Operate
Freedom to operate: what an FTO analysis actually covers
FTO asks whether you can sell a product without infringing. How the search differs from a patentability search, what an opinion buys you, and when to do it.
Patent landscape analysis: what it shows and how to run one
How to run a patent landscape analysis — defining scope, building the dataset, cleaning it, reading filing trends and white space, and what the analysis cannot tell you.
FTO meaning: freedom to operate explained
What FTO means in patents — freedom to operate — why it differs from owning a patent, what an FTO search covers, and what an opinion protects you from.
Freedom to operate patent search
What an FTO search covers that a patentability search does not, why it cannot stop early, how jurisdiction and claim-element scope drive the cost, and how to brief one.
Search & Tools
Patent services: who provides what
The patent service landscape — searching, drafting, prosecution, annuity payment, brokerage, valuation and litigation support — who provides each and what it costs.
Pharmaceutical patent search: sources and method
How to search pharmaceutical patents — the Orange Book and Purple Book, structure and Markush searching, patent families, and why chemical searching differs from keyword searching.
Patent status: checking whether a patent is alive
How to check whether a patent is in force — where status actually lives, what each status means, why the document never tells you, and how to read a lapse or revival.
Patent prosecution software and docketing
What prosecution software actually does — docketing, USPTO integration, annuity tracking, drafting assistance — and how to evaluate it when a missed deadline is the real risk.
Patentability search services: what they deliver
What a patentability search covers, how it differs from freedom-to-operate and validity searches, what a good report contains, how to brief a searcher, and how to read the results.
Patent tools: the working landscape
A map of the patent tools that exist — search, status, ownership, drafting, analytics, monitoring, annuities and drawings — which are free, and which task each one actually solves.
Patent search cost: what each type is worth paying for
What each type of patent search costs — patentability, freedom to operate, validity, landscape — what the price actually buys, when free searching is enough, and how the cost compares to being wrong.
Patent monitoring: what to watch and why
What patent monitoring covers, the five things worth watching, how alert thresholds work, what a monitoring programme costs in attention, and how to act on what it finds.
How to see if something is patented
How to check whether a product or idea is patented — where to search, how to read what you find, how to confirm a patent is still in force, and what to do when the search comes back empty.
Patent intelligence platforms for legal professionals
How legal teams should evaluate patent intelligence platforms — the workflows that matter in practice, the data that has to be defensible, docketing and privilege considerations, and where free tools still win.
Patent drawing tools for law firms
What USPTO patent drawings must comply with, the objections non-compliant figures draw, the options from in-house software to specialist services, and how to brief a draftsperson.
Choosing patent analysis solutions
How to evaluate patent analysis tools — what the categories actually do, the questions that separate real capability from marketing, what they cost, and when you do not need one.
AI patent search: what semantic search finds
How AI patent search differs from keyword search, what semantic matching finds that keywords miss, where recall still fails, how to verify results, and when a professional search is still required.
AI patent drafting tools: what they do well and badly
What AI drafting tools produce, why claim scope resists automation, how to review an AI-generated application, the disclosure and inventorship rules that still apply, and what to check before filing.