Due diligence is a key concept in the business world. Before buying a new company or investing in a new product, companies spend millions of dollars reviewing financial statements, accounting methods, and market reports to ensure that their investments have no hidden risks. In contrast, many companies turn a blind eye to their competitors’ patents when developing their own R&D efforts and patent filing strategies. Unaware of the patent landscape, these companies risk costly infringement lawsuits and even the potential shutdown of an entire product line.

Patent searches and patent landscape analysis are necessary due diligence tools in the high-tech world. Patent searches give companies’ notice of potential IP litigation risks from competitor patents. This gives the company time to refocus R&D efforts to different products, obtain a license, or design-around relevant patents before a product is put on the market.

Research in Motion’s costly lawsuit with NTP provides a stern reminder of the importance of patent due diligence. In March 3, 2006 Research in Motion (producers of Blackberry) announced a settlement of $612.5 million dollars to settle its infringement suit with NTP, ending a five year court battle over the validity of NTP’s wireless email patents, and ending a patent saga that threatened to shutdown RIM’s Blackberry sales in the United States entirely.

The IP battle began in January, 2000, when NTP sent RIM a letter regarding six of its wireless email patents and offering RIM a license. Instead of conducting an in-depth analysis of NTP’s patents, Charles Meyer, RIM’s in-house attorney, discussed NTP’s patents with his staff and quickly concluded that there was no infringement. When the case first came before Judge Spencer in the U.S. district court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Spencer ruled in favor of NTP, finding Meyer’s opinions incompetent because they were based on insufficient information. This decision sparked five years of costly litigation and appeals before RIM finally conceded to the gigantuan $612.5 million settlement.

Continue reading here.

The case filed by Garnet Digital last week provides some interesting insight into joining multiple defendants in the same lawsuit.

Here is the reasoning for the joinder:

 

The full complaint can be found here.

IP Checkups, Inc., a boutique patent analytics firm, announced today that Irving Rappaport and Matthew Rappaport were named among the world’s leading intellectual property (IP) strategists, according to the recently published IAM Strategy 250: the World’s Leading IP Strategists.

IP Checkups, Inc., a boutique patent analytics firm, announced today that Irving Rappaport and Matthew Rappaport were named among the world’s leading intellectual property (IP) strategists, according to the recently published IAM Strategy 250: the World’s Leading IP Strategists*. This is the second year in a row that the company’s two founders, a father and son team, have been selected.

IAM Strategy 250: the World’s Leading IP Strategists, published annually by Intellectual Asset Management Magazine, is based on extensive research and is recognized as the pre-eminent reference source for those seeking world-class strategic IP business advice. The peer-nominated list is comprised of individuals who create, develop and deploy strategies that help IP rights’ owners gain maximum value from their IP portfolios.

“The IAM 250 is a prestigious list to be on and is another indication that our clients are satisfied,” said Matthew Rappaport, Managing Director of IP CheckupsTM. “Being named to this list means that our clients recognize the value we provide and the business advantage they gain from our products and services.”

Matthew Rappaport and Irving Rappaport’s inclusion in the IAM 250 speaks volumes to their capabilities and joint expertise. Since founding IP Checkups in 2004, Matthew Rappaport has provided competitive patent landscape analyses, IP portfolio strategy and development services, and custom patent searching and analysis. Additionally, he has created customized patent databases for a variety of clients, including IP Checkups’ best-in-class CleanTech PatentEdgeTM solution that categorizes more than 1.5 million worldwide patents into more than 150 cleantech market areas. In 2009, Rappaport lead IP Checkups’ introduction of a web-based competitive patent intelligence service and software platform, PatentCAM™, which provides affordable and easy-to-use management and monitoring of competitive patent portfolio information and is currently used by an assortment of large and small companies, investment firms and Universities..

Irving Rappaport has been a licensed patent attorney for over 40 years, he has lead numerous IP departments for top tier companies. He served as Associate General Counsel for Intellectual Property and Licensing at Apple Computer where he built the company’s IP department from 1984-90. Following a consulting project for Intel in 1990 to 1991, where he recommended the “Intel Inside” campaign, he served as Vice President and Associate General Counsel for IP and Licensing at National Semiconductor. He also headed the IP departments for Medtronic, Data General, and Bally-Midway. In 1992, Mr. Rappaport co-founded SmartPatents, Inc., a startup focused on converting paper patents into an electronic format enabling the development of software tools that could assess and manipulate patents, eliminating the old paper paradigm. In 1996, the company changed its name to Aurigin Systems and developed Aureka®, a powerful software platform used for evaluating and assessing entire patent portfolios in their competitive landscapes. In 2002, at the time Aurigin Systems was sold, it provided services to more than 100 Fortune 1000 companies. Mr. Rappaport is a co-inventor on 26 issued U.S. patents.

Together, Matthew and Irving Rappaport successfully lead IP CheckupsTM in assisting clients to build strategic, defensible and valuable patent portfolios aligned with their business objectives. IP Checkups is recognized as a leading boutique research, analytic and strategy firm because it delivers valuable IP services required in today’s competitive business environment, including in-depth patent analysis and the development of customized IP creation, management and monetization strategies in less time and for significantly lower cost compared to other services.

Greentech Media has summarized a recent CleanTech IP Panel, which Matthew Rappaport participated for the Licensing Executives Society – Silicon Valley Meeting.

Greentech IP Trends: Risks and Opportunities