​​Patently Strategic - Patent Strategy for Startups

Jaksot

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  The Biotech Bargain: How Patents Help Turn Risk Into Medicine 03.07.2026 1t

  Do patents make drugs more expensive? And what role does intellectual property play in getting new medicines from the lab bench to patients? The questions have never been more timely. Biopharmaceutical innovation sits at the center of some of our biggest public policy debates. Drug pricing, access, generic competition, university research, venture funding, AI-driven discovery, follow-on research, and the future of biotech startups. And in the middle of those debates, patents are often reduce...
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  Design Patents: Building Better Moats 27.04.2026 56min

  When most people think or speak generally about patents, they’re really talking about utility patents – or patents that are primarily concerned with how an invention is used and how it works. But as it turns out, this is just one specific type of patent on the complete menu of options available for protecting your innovations. Another option, called a design patent, exists to – additionally or alternatively – protect the appearance of your invention. And whether you find yourself in an...
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  Willful Infringement: When Patent Piracy Turns Egregious 27.02.2026 1t 14min

  Willful infringement is a patent law concept that applies when someone infringes a patent knowingly or with reckless disregard for the patent holder’s rights. It goes beyond accidental infringement, often involving a deliberate choice to use protected work despite awareness of the rights holder. With unintentional infringement, the infringer can still be required to pay damages, negotiate a license, or face an injunction to halt the infringing activities. If the infringement is deemed willful...
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  Patent Abandonment and Revival 28.01.2026 52min

  Patent abandonment is the premature relinquishment of patent rights for an invention. Abandonment can happen voluntarily for various strategic and cost reasons, but can also happen silently and unintentionally. It can happen before the right is even granted in the case of public disclosure. But it can also happen after the patent has been granted at many key points in its otherwise useful life and window of exclusivity. Like with other property rights, securing your patent isn’t the end of th...
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  European Patent Practice 07.11.2025 1t 21min

  What are your options for protecting inventions across Europe? In this month’s episode, we’re taking a journey across the pond with a discussion on European Patent Practice. This episode is part two of a series we’re doing on International Patenting and follows Ashley’s exceptional Travel Guide to Foreign Protection from earlier this season. Even in a globalized economy, patents are still nationalized documents. For example, a U.S. patent only grants the right to exclude others from mak...
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  Patent Marking: No Mark, No Money 23.09.2025 50min

  In this month’s episode, we’re talking about patent marking – and its massive implications on your ability to collect on infringement damages. We’ve all seen patent numbers on physical products. Much like their copyright and trademark cousins, these designations are far from cosmetic. And instead serve a statutory requirement to provide public notice about your protected intellectual property. In the case of patent marking, not only does it reduce the risk of infringement because you ...
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  Startup Capital: Strategic Fundraising and Patent Value 11.07.2025 55min

  Whether you’re a founder looking to take the next fundraising steps beyond bootstrapping, an aspiring angel investor looking to understand the risks of seed investing, or even a practitioner hoping to get a better grasp of how this all works hand-in-hand with patent strategy, today’s topic provides an incredible springboard into the high risk, high reward world of strategic fundraising for early-stage startups. ** Guest Host: Charlie Pascal ** To help us with the specifics, we’ve enlist...
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  International Patents: Your Travel Guide to Foreign Protection 27.05.2025 58min

  In today’s global economy, the importance of international patent protection cannot be overstated. Your invention could be conceived of with a workforce distributed across several continents. Your manufacturing could happen in Asia or India, while your products are shipped into and distributed from ports in the target markets of the largest economies across the globe. Would be competitors and infringers could be next door neighbors or perhaps across the pond. But as you’ll learn today, there ...
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  Cannabis Patents: Cutting Through the Haze of the IP Landscape 21.04.2025 1t 14min

  In this month’s episode, we’re getting high on innovation with a deep dive into cannabis patents! As more and more states relax restrictions on both medical and recreational uses of marijuana and hemp, the U.S. cannabis industry is projected to reach $50 billion in sales this year and over $74.6 billion by 2032! This rapid growth is happening despite immense challenges brought on by a complex and conflicting web of legal disparities between federal and state laws. These legal challenge...
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  ParkerVision v. Rule 36: The Battle for Dignity and Due Process 17.03.2025 1t 10min

  If a court stripped away your property rights, wouldn’t you at least want an explanation? The answer is obvious, but the reality is appalling. The practice of revoking patent rights on appeal without explanation has been happening to inventors at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals (CAFC) at an alarming rate. In over 43% of PTAB cases on appeal at the CAFC, inventors receive a single-word response – “AFFIRMED” – rather than an opinion. This practice is referred to as the application of Rule ...
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  Dealing with Rejection: Overcoming 101, 102, 103, and 112 06.02.2025 1t 16min

  So, your patent application got rejected. Now what? In this month’s episode, we’re talking about rejection. Specifically, the type that comes from the patent office in the form of an intimidating sounding three-digit number when your application gets denied by an examiner. Some time after submitting your application, it goes into a process with the patent office called examination. This is the part of your patent’s prosecution journey where an examiner reviews your application for confo...
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  Patent Case Law Review: Obviousness 06.12.2024 1t 12min

  An invention cannot be patented if the differences between your claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was conceived. Determining obviousness – and the validity of your patent – is more than simply establishing that the invention doesn’t already exist and that it isn’t documented elsewhere. Its conception must also not have otherwise been obvious to those ...
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  Petition Practice: Correcting PTO Errors With Your Patent 05.11.2024 1t 9min

  Patent examiners can make mistakes. Patent office clerks can misfile paperwork and cause procedural errors. The software tools, document formats like DOCX, and the IT systems your application passes through can have bugs. What recourse do you have when quality issues creep in at this stage? This is where petition practice, fortunately, comes to the rescue. ** Quality Patents Part 5 ** This is our final episode in a multi-part series focused on quality patents. The prior four episodes have ...
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  Keeping Patent Pirates at Bay: ITC Portfolio Proofing Strategies 01.10.2024 1t 7min

  For inventors, the promise of the patent system is the right to exclude others from making, using, importing, and selling their patented innovations for a limited period. But how do patent holders actually enforce those rights, particularly when the copycat product is being manufactured outside of domestic jurisdiction? In an otherwise challenging time for rights assertion, the ITC – or International Trade Commission – can be one of the most impactful long-range weapons an inventor has in the...
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  Continuation Practice: Quality Patents Part 3 06.09.2024 1t 14min

  There’s not a more important concept that’s more widely misunderstood by those newer to patenting than continuations. So we’re dedicating Part 3 of our series on quality patents to everything you need to know about this essential step for future proofing and increasing the value of your portfolio. Void of pursuing continuations, the language of your patent is frozen in time at issuance. The specifics of the enforceable boundaries of your protection are forever fixed to the claims you chose ...
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  PTAB Survival Guide: Quality Patents Part 2 01.08.2024 1t 10min

  The most terrifying thing that can happen to a patent owner is receiving what’s called an IPR or Inter Partes Review petition. This is a tool that accused infringers can use to invalidate patents. And they have … to alarming effect. As we’ve discussed, the kill rate at the PTAB is staggering. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board – or as regular listeners of this audience more commonly know it as, the "Patent Death Squad" – has racked up a claim execution rate north of 84% and the death of thousa...
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  Quality Patents 02.07.2024 1t 3min

  Is your patent a vanity piece of paper for your office wall? Or is it a reliable, defendable, assertable, property right? The difference is often quality. Is your patent simply a transactional cost and a large pile of legal bills for your startup? Or is it a leverageable asset worthy of attracting precious investment dollars, worth its cost in multiples of valuation? The difference is often quality. Is your patent application only good enough to get through the examination process? Or has ...
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  Inventor Stories: Robert Cameron and the Power of Perseverance 03.06.2024 1t 6min

  We’ve seen few entrepreneurial success stories that haven’t involved heavy doses of perseverance, grit, observation, and creative problem-solving. Today’s guest possesses these qualities in spades. And while I can’t necessarily recommend some of the more death-defying specifics of his approach … at least not without a lot of “don’t try this at home” fine print :) … I do think that most inventors and aspiring entrepreneurs will benefit immensely from studying our guest's thoughtfully cra...
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  CAFC Chronicles: Costly Tales of Claim Construction Fails 01.05.2024 1t 2min

  The difference between getting claim construction right and getting it wrong is the difference between a valid patent and an invalid patent – and the difference between millions of dollars awarded from infringement decisions vs. ending up with a worthless piece of paper. In this month’s episode, Dr. David Jackrel, President of Jackrel Consulting, leads a discussion into three real-world applications for patent claim construction, as tested and decided upon by the United States Court of Appea...
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  Patents and AI: Current Tools, Future Solutions 20.03.2024 1t 7min

  We’re talking about AI and its impact on the patent system. This month's episode evaluates where we presently are and considers where it could all be heading. Dr. David Jackrel and Dr. Ashley Sloat lead a two-part discussion with our all-star panel that begins with a deep dive on the present state of AI patent tools for searching, proofreading, drafting, and prosecution – and then moves on to an exploration of how these tools could eventually provide solutions for many problems plaguing the ...