Patent Ratings - Patent Quality Ratings, Valuations, Research & Consulting

Patent Ratings - Patent Quality Ratings, Valuations, Research & Consulting: "A Statistical Approach For Rating and Valuing Patent Assets
By: Jonathan A. Barney
'Numbers serve to discipline rhetoric. Without them it is too easy to follow flights of fancy, to ignore the world as it is and to remold it nearer the heart's desire.'
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~
Introduction
Accurately appraising the value of patents and other intangible intellectual property assets is a highly difficult task requiring mastery of a broad range of legal, technical and accounting disciplines.
The value of a patent ultimately rests on the ability to enforce the legal rights it secures. But, it is an inevitable fact that not all patents are created equal. There are good patents and bad patents; broad patents and narrow patents; patents that are well-drafted and prosecuted and others that are not so well-drafted or prosecuted. Two different patents – even in the same industry and relating to the same subject matter – can command drastically different royalty rates in a free market (or damage awards in litigation) depending upon the comparative breadth of the legal rights secured and the defensibility of those rights against validity challenges."