What do you do to monetise and IP portfolio when you don’t know where to start? That’s a question that patent portfolio managers might face when their executives want to know what the patent monetisation options are when a business winds down.

How do you set and execute a patent strategy for a high-growth, pre-revenue, technology company? That was the challenge the TuSimple team faced soon after the company was founded in 2015.

In this article, we present various strategies and best practices the firm’s team implemented. In some instances, the team made solid initial choices; in other cases, they adapted to sea changes in response to the business and the market. Overall, TuSimple picked a path that allowed for flexibility and adaptability that enabled a competitive patent portfolio.

When do startups and younger companies need to start building their patent portfolios? When do you transition from trade secret to patent? Will a patent portfolio help you secure funding? What are investors looking for? How can a startup continue portfolio building during an economic downturn?

We surveyed 30 leading technology companies to discover how much many unseen patent assertions they face in a year. Unseen patent assertions are invitations to take a patent license where there is no litigation. We use the data to extrapolate the costs to these companies.

How do you respond to NPE threats and litigations, both anticipated and actual? One cost-effective strategy is the use of defensive aggregators.

LinkedIn was a big brand name with a small patent portfolio – a combination that made it vulnerable to a patent attack. In 2012 the LinkedIn decided to do something about it.

Are you looking for a financial model to explain your patent development and acquisition programs? We show how to answer your CEO’s, or GC’s, question about how much to spend on patents.