PATENT METRIX

What does your company do?
We deliver tools that help companies cost-effectively and efficiently avoid infringing third party patents. We produce independent research – in the form of our proprietary TechScreens? and PortfolioScape? reports – that proactively identifies, analyzes, and explains patent issues for key technology sectors. Companies use our TechScreens to screen designs for patent issues and identify patent acquisition opportunities.
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Why is that valuable?
One of the greatest risks that technology companies face is being successfully sued for patent infringement. The costs for patent infringement are staggering. The average cost of attorney fees and costs alone is over $2 million (with an average of $1 million to $25 million at stake) and increases to over $4 million with more than $25 million is at stake (AIPLA Economic Survey 2003). According to the Journal of Financial Economics, the market value of companies accused of infringement drop an average of 3.1%. A successful suit can destroy profit margins, eliminate bargaining power, divert valuable resources, and distract executives from critical tasks. With multi-million dollar patent infringement lawsuits becoming a business reality, it is an absolute imperative for companies to understand the patent landscape within which they are expected to compete. Managers must be empowered to efficiently identify potential threats and opportunities. Engineers must be empowered to efficiently screen their designs to avoid creating infringing products and services. However, to date, there are no existing tools that empower executives to cost-effectively comply with third party patent rights.
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What is “patent compliance”?
Patent compliance is one of the largest unmet operational compliance issues in the technology world today. Complying with third party patent rights requires instituting processes within an organization that empower engineers to produce infringement-free designs and enable executives to integrate patent threats and opportunities into business strategy. Patent compliance is made possible through the effective implementation of a set of business processes that bridges the world of engineers, executives, and attorneys. Great companies know not only what the market wants but what they can, and cannot, do from a patent perspective.
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Is complying with third party patent rights a big issue?
Patent are powerful assets. They represent a large and constant strategic threat to every technology business. It is an absolute imperative for companies to understand the patent landscape within which they are expected to compete. Even the most well run companies have been hit with extraordinary damage awards.
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Why is your approach unique?
Conventionally, products and services are designed and then reviewed by an attorney to determine whether they infringe a patent. It is a long, expensive, and typically unfeasible process. Our patent pending approach empowers engineers to screen, in real-time, their designs to identify whether a patent issue may exist. If they conclude an issue may exist, an attorney is notified to specifically analyze the issue and provide legal advice. Because our proprietary screens avoid implicating the identity of any particular patent, we are able to help engineers identify patent issues but not expose the company to willful infringement liability. We also package our patent portfolio analyses to educate executives on general patent opportunities and threats.
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Why not just hire a law firm?
Attorneys are unable to rapidly and economically review complex products and services in light of hundreds of applicable patents, changing design specifications, and limited budgets. Any viable solution requires massive amounts of technically skilled, patent trained labor to proactively identify and review thousands of patents related to various technologies, products, features, and components. A single patent landscape analysis typically takes hundreds of hours of a technically skilled, patent professional’s time.
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How is this different from just conducting a patent search?
Searching is just a small part of the much larger compliance process. A patent search merely identifies a set of patents that may be relevant based on a search string of classification numbers or keywords. Searches conducted on a classification basis do not yield all relevant patents. Searches conducted using keywords may not be complete without a full understanding of the product market that is being targeted. Once the searching is complete, the patents must still be analyzed and then processed to put them in a form that would allow engineers to proactively screen designs for patent issues. This requires hundreds of hours of a patent professional’s time and, under existing service models, cannot be done quickly or affordably.
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How can my company use your products and services?
PatentMetrix produces two complementary products: TechScreens? and PortfolioScape?. IP counsel and technical teams use TechScreens? to identify potential patent issues in technical designs. Executives use PortfolioScape? to identify patent threats and opportunities.
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How do we integrate your research into our operations?
Members of your technical team are assigned specific TechScreens? and use them to evaluate the design of a product. If the evaluation indicates no issue exists, he/she signs off on it. If an issue may exist, the employee contacts IP counsel who uses an attorney-eyes-only guide to understand what patent claims are implicated. IP counsel is then able to conduct a highly directed analysis of the company’s technology relative to specific patents, thereby successfully identifying critical issues without exposing the company to any additional liability. This empowers engineers while actively supporting the attorney’s role.
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Business managers use PortfolioScape? to identify potentially acquirable patents held by institutions or small companies and understand the relative patent position of competitors. PortfolioScape? insight is generated from the analytical foundation provided by TechScreens?. It delivers a business-level view of the most critical patents and abstracts two key pieces of knowledge for busy executives: 1) what companies are well positioned and 2) what entities own valuable patents. PortfolioScape? empowers the business manager to transform patent threats—identified using TechScreens?—into patent opportunities before corporate strategy is made public and before the company incurs any real liability.
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What if we have questions on the research?
Our products are supported by a full range of Advisory Services and a customer support team. Our experienced patent professionals help companies integrate TechScreens? into their operations, and if needed, customize TechScreens? to address issues of specific concern. With each Membership Package, we provide consultation time and inquiry support to help define the terms as used in the TechScreens?.
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How can you help our in-house attorneys?
We create a clean room environment for your engineers to identify patent issues, so that the company’s attorneys can analyze specific, well-defined issues. Our patent pending methodology bridges the engineering and legal world. If the screen indicates an issue may exist, the employee contacts corporate counsel. Corporate counsel uses our TechScreen? Guide to understand what patent claims were used to derive each screen. Armed with that information, corporate counsel is then able to do a highly directed analysis of the company’s technology relative to specific patents, assess the risk, and make an informed decision. We help attorneys do what they do best—conduct focused, directed analyses to determine if a specific design infringes a specific patent.
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Does using your products or services expose us to any liability?
No. Your technical teams never receive any information that puts them on notice of a specific patent or patent claim. We do not introduce patent knowledge into the organization.
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How do you produce these reports?
With our offshore infrastructure, we dedicate large amounts of manpower required to define technical areas and search and analyze relevant patents. We do not rely on statistics or questionable classification assumptions. On the contrary, we focus on hiring and training individuals who possess a combination of strong technical skills with the requisite patent knowledge to determine what is, and is not, a potential issue. Each search within a technology space is carefully designed, and each patent is carefully reviewed to ensure proper categorization and space coverage.
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What happens if more patents dealing with my area of interest get issued?
Depending on the subscription package, you will periodically receive updates to the TechScreens?. The updates will include TechScreens covering any additional, relevant patents.
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What technology sectors do you cover?
In February 2004, we will begin publishing TechScreens? covering various aspects of Wi-Fi (802.11) based communications. In the future, we will publish reports covering Application Development, Application Integration, Biomedical Devices, Data Mining, Data Warehousing and Storage, Digital Media Distribution, Enterprise Management, Enterprise Networking, Hardware Platforms, Interactive Television, Internet Platforms, Nanotechnology, Security & Privacy, Transaction Technologies, and Web Services.
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How do your subscription programs work?
We offer Membership Package subscriptions tailored to client needs. For a given Focus Area, a typical Membership Package includes:
o 10-12 TechScreen? reports per year covering various features, technologies, or components in one Focus Area.
    • A PortfolioScape? report accompanying each TechScreen? report.
    • Senior Analyst briefings to help executives understand the implications of our research.
    • Customer support to clarify questions on a TechScreen? or PortfolioScape? report.
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Do you disclose your client list?
We do not disclose our client list unless there is an express written agreement between the client and Metrix Services, Inc allowing us to do so.
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What if you do not currently have a report or Focus Area that I’m interested in?
We are interested in knowing what your company needs. If you have a report or Focus Areathat you are particularly interested in, please contact us.
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