Protecting Your Intellectual Property with IP Due Diligence and Audits

Whether you are developing a product, involved in business transactions that include a transfer or licensing of intellectual property, or concerned about the threat of intellectual property held by competitors or non-practicing entities, the attorneys at Christensen, Fonder, Dardi & Herbert PLLC can perform intellectual property due-diligence investigations to help you achieve your business goals.

Intellectual property due-diligence and investigations can take many forms. In some instances, it might be simply reviewing a company’s IP portfolio to determine whether their intellectual property including patents and trademarks is valid. This allows us to evaluate the potential value of intellectual property before you acquire it or take a license. In other instances, it might require reviewing a competitor’s website and advertising to ensure that they are not encroaching on your trademarks.

In still others, it may include freedom-to-operate investigations – where we can identify potential threats to your business by searching and analyzing the mass of U.S. or foreign patents to develop a customized database of intellectual property that represents the most relevant technology landscape for your business and determining, from that database, the extent of potentially adverse patents. This allows us to identify threats to your business before they arise – where competitors or other actors could use their intellectual property to hinder the use of your products or other technology.

Where we identify threats, we then can assist your business by preparing strategies to avoid adverse intellectual property.

For example, we can assist in evaluating the validity of potentially adverse patents, evaluating the likelihood of adverse action, and by identifying and detailing technical changes to your own products or technologies to reduce risk or avoid infringement. In addition, we can assist by identifying potentially adverse patents that could be targeted for acquisition – potentially adding significant value to your own IP portfolio, and providing cross-licensing opportunities with competitors.

In addition to providing due-diligence investigations, having the intellectual property attorneys at Christensen, Fonder, Dardi & Herbert conduct an intellectual property audit of your business may well help you bolster the long-term profitability of your intellectual property assets. For instance, by uncovering whether your business has developed a technology or tech process that is patentable as well as minimizing the risk of those assets being lost through theft or misappropriation – giving you the tools and guidance you need to create agreements with employees, vendors, and contractors that will protect high-value assets.

While entrepreneurs and start-ups naturally benefit from intellectual property audit services, larger and more established businesses can also significantly benefit as such businesses typically have larger and more complicated IP portfolios – thereby increasing the risk of overlooking technology, opportunities for licensing, and increasing the difficulty of protecting your IP assets.

Learn about some of the reasons for having our IP investigators conduct an audit and review of your intellectual property assets:

1. Help ensure that your research and development efforts are designed to capture and leverage a future business opportunity.
2. Identify the risks that might be involved in a new trademark, new product, or planned products.
3. Evaluate the IP rights and risks that come with expanding into a new market or country.
4. Determine the IP rights and risks that may result from acquiring or launching a new product or service.
5. Assess the value and impact of acquiring, selling or licensing your IP.
6. Determine the integrity of your IP asset protection procedures and agreements with employees.
7. Demonstrate the value of your business to potential financing and investment capital groups.
8. Show the value of a company to prepare for a merger, joint venture or sale of the business.
9. Assess the validity of claims of infringement made by a third party, such as a competitor.
10. Deal with the consequences of IP rights expiring.

Managing and enhancing intellectual property may seem like a daunting job. But managing IP effectively is important because it can be critical to the success of a business.