Patent Strategy Basics:
For very simple products, one patent may be enough to obatin adequate protection. However, most products on the market today are far too complex to be adequately protected in a single patent. The term patent strategy is typically used to describe the plan used to develop large numbers of patents with strategic value in complex competitive relationships. A good patent strategy should cover both the present needs, as well as future developments.

The terms "offensive" and "defensive" are typically used to describe the two basic functions of patents. Offensive patents are designed to reduce your competitor's ability to compete in a particular area. Defensive patents and disclosures are intended to keep others from filing on space that is important to your development path.

Corporate Level Strategy:
At the corporate level, patent strategy involves many aspects of organizational policy and business strategy. In some industries, patents may be an afterthought (e.g., many service industries). In other industries, patents are the life-blood (e.g., pharmaceuticals). The following questions, for example, will depend on an overall corporate strategy:

• How is the intellectual property going to be acquired? (in-development vs. licensing/purchasing)
• What will the competitive emphasis be? (offensive vs. defensive)
• What type/size of budget impact is expected? (net costs or net profits)
• What organization drives the patent strategy? (R&D or legal)
• What impact will IP have on your research strategy? (discovery driven or IP driven).
• What policies and procedures are in place to preserve IP rights? (e.g., agreements to assign, recordkeeping, invention disclosures, joint-development agreements, etc.)
• How closely integrated are overall corporate strategy and patent strategy?
  

These questions and many others will determine what role patents and inventions will play within a corporation.

Project Level Strategy:
In addition to the big-picture questions mentioned above, each project has many smaller elements that are critical to the effectiveness of the overall patent strategy. For example, regular IP audits should be conducted to insure that appropriate protection is being acquired and maintained. Competitive audits should be conducted to assess the overall landscape of the industry as well as for competitive intelligence purposes. Product design should incorporate information these audits. The number of patent applications and types of claims should be jointly developed between R&D and legal resources to maximize the value obtained.

In many cases, engineers, scientists, and executives assume that the legal department will take care of the patent strategy. Little training and feedback is given to the rank and file because patents and strategy are considered too complex for the average researcher. While the critical elements of patents should always be reserved for attorneys, some degree of understanding of the patent system can be invaluable to researchers and executives.

Importantly, R&D and product development personnel should be trained to recognize opportunities for inventions, conduct preliminary art searches, identify competitively valuable IP space, and collaborate with counsel to optimize patent protection.