TECHNOLOGY LAW EXPERTS



	Although, the value of a particular patent may be related to many factors, a patent’s value is most often directly related to the inventive subject matter covered by the claims and the quality of the patent. A patent’s value may depend on the size and strength of the patent portfolio of the patent holder, the number of patents owned by others, the patent holder’s reputation for pursuing litigation, the strategies employed by the patent holder in utilizing the patent and numerous other factors. In general, however, a patent’s quality can be correlated to the ability to assert the patent in court and the likelihood the patent will withstand the scrutiny during litigation. When faced with huge damage awards, defendants accused of patent infringement will often spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in legal fees to prove non-infringement or to invalidate a patent. Budgets for legal fees for preparing patent applications, however, are typically on the order of tens of thousands of dollars. Accordingly, it is often advantageous to utilize a patent attorney that can efficiently draft a high quality patent application, especially if the patent holder plans to assert the patent against an infringer. Patent attorneys with engineering experience and strong technical backgrounds can generally provide more efficient and higher quality services than those with less technical experience. A strong technical background allows a patent attorney to quickly identify and understand an invention, thereby providing the attorney with more time to develop a claiming strategy and refine the technical description of the application.