(154a) Strategies for Evaluating Intellectual Property Rights Prior to Product Launch

Innovation and launch of products involves many parties, including suppliers and finished goods manufacturers.  Analyzing the intellectual property (“IP”) issues spanning from development to launch is a key component to ensure a successful introduction of a new product.  During this session, we will explore what every executive needs to know about evaluating the strength of your company’s patents, minimizing risk of infringement, blocking competitors and strategic IP planning.  In addition, we will explore recent legislative changes under the America Invents Act (“AIA”) that provides new routes for challenging third party patents should a potential risk arise late in the product launch timeline. Specifically, a new Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) procedure to attack patents has proved deadly. In the last year almost 95% of patents that entered IPR did not come out the other end.  In this session, we will address how to use IPR to your advantage and how to maximize the chances that your own patent survives an IPR attack.