Inventing I

We were called on to assist with a new venture for a well-established company planning to expand its product and services line. Over the course of several meetings, approximately 40 inventions were conceived, of which Valuetech contributed to approximately 30. The inventions related to quite diverse aspects of the new venture, and were provided to the client in the form of invention disclosures. About 10 of the invention disclosures contributed by Valuetech were selected to become the subject of patent applications, and already one of these has been granted.

Inventing II

We were called on to assist an existing division of a well-established company working in a mature area, which was crowded with intellectual property. After an extensive analysis of existing patents and patent applications, gaps were identified in the prior art and several potential inventions were proposed. Out of these, three were selected for patent protection, and patents for these are currently pending in the US and in Europe.

Litigation Support: Prior Art Searching

Valuetech was called on to provide support for a client that was being sued for patent infringement. A family of several patents was being asserted against some of the client’s products. The exercise Valuetech undertook was to perform in-depth prior art searching in order to uncover patents and other pre-existing references that were not taken into account at the time the asserted patents were granted. After extensive searching, several items of prior art were found, which were directly relevant to the asserted claims. This prior art was then used to argue invalidity of the asserted patents.