Whether you are developing new products, entering into a new market, or exploring opportunities to commercialize your IP portfolio, Seager, Tufte & Wickhem (STW) attorneys ensure you understand the scope of your IP portfolio and the IP landscape relative to your products, markets, and opportunities. STW attorneys provide the services needed to assist you in developing defensive and offensive positions relative to the IP landscape in your markets.
STW offers a variety of services that focus on developing an overall IP portfolio strategy, providing guidance on avoiding IP litigation, and determining your IP portfolio’s strengths in the relevant markets. STW attorneys are experienced in modifying their general approaches to meet your particular IP portfolio counseling needs and guidelines.
Seager, Tufte & Wickhem (STW) provides risk assessments at all stages of product cycle. Our attorneys provide assessments and guidance at idea creation with IP landscape assessments, along with freedom-to-operate (FTO) analyses and opinions once a product configuration has been locked.
Landscape and FTO assessments are modified as needed to meet your business requirements and are regularly updated as a product or service cycle proceeds. Using both landscape and FTO assessments will allow you to know and mitigate your risk when developing a new product or service, while limiting product development and design costs due to knowing and understanding various IP portfolios in the market.
Landscape Assessments
Landscape assessments are performed at or around the time of idea creation or recognition. With respect to patents, these assessments identify potentially problematic patents and provide guidance on how a product or service may be configured to avoid those identified patents, while being novel and “non-obvious” over the patents in the market. Similarly, trademark and copyright landscape assessments identify relevant potentially problematic marks and copyrighted materials. In view of a landscape assessment, business decisions go forward with a product or changed directions may be made in a well-informed and calculated manner.
Non-Infringement and Invalidity Assessments
Non-Infringement and Invalidity assessments include non-infringement and/or invalidity analyses and opinions with respect to specific patents that are identified or flagged as increasing the legal risk of bringing a product or service to market. STW provides objective and disinterested assessments of patents in or relevant to particular product and service markets. With such assessments and opinions, you are able to make decisions to bring products and services to market knowing patent infringement risks have been assessed and mitigated.
Seager, Tufte & Wickhem (STW) provides auditing and market analysis services that allow you to keep a finger on the pulse of your business’s IP portfolio and on the pulse of the competition. By understanding the direction of your competition and your position with respect to the competition, you can determine opportunities in your market and where to direct your business.
IP Auditing
STW attorneys assist you in auditing your IP portfolio to determine its strengths and weaknesses. By reviewing your product lineup and IP portfolio, STW is able to identify areas in which you can focus your resources to best boost the quality of your portfolio. Additionally, through IP auditing and market analysis, STW attorneys provide guidance on strategies that best apply your resources to boost the quality of your IP portfolio by addressing the identified areas.
Market Analysis
STW provides in-depth analysis of what your competitors and potential competitors are doing to protect their technology. STW customizes its market analyses to your needs, which can include a one-off analysis or on-going analyses. Such market analyses are configured to provide valuations, an understanding of IP litigation activity in a market, and guidance on IP coverage in a market by inventor, assignee, or technology, and provide general trends in that market.