In the decision making process of a company in the fields of research and development, law and marketing, information about its own protection rights and/or the rights of any third party plays an important role.
Accordingly, before the development, and by all means before the market launch or the presentation of a new product in a trade fair, it is advisable to have a “freedom-to-operate” analysis conducted in order to reduce the risk of infringing intellectual property rights of a third party. In the context of such “freedom-to-operate” expert opinions for a product or a technological field, we examine whether you encroach upon the protection rights of a competitor and how high the risk of your committing an infringement is. In such expert opinions, we scrutinize not only granted patents but also patent/utility model applications so that we can confidently advise you how to distance your technologies from the ones of your competitors.
The patent law firm Meyer-Dulheuer MD Legal Patentanwälte also generates expert opinions in which we inform you of the activities of your competitors to keep you updated of their newest technological developments.
Evaluation Of IP Rights
Intellectual property rights can increase the value of a corporation and, therefore, usually constitute a significant portion of the intangible assets of that corporation. The value of intellectual property rights plays an important role in selling a company or part thereof. The same applies in cases of bankruptcy. Consequently, it is very important to accurately and comprehensively evaluate the already existent IP portfolio.
Our team possesses extensive knowledge and experience in assessing intellectual property rights in all technical fields. We evaluate the validity as well as the material value of your existing IP portfolio.
IP Due Diligence
Especially in such highly technological age as ours, effective and sophisticated patent strategies are of enormous importance. The dramatically increasing significance of intellectual property and the decreasing time between the launch of a new product and the market entrance of a competitor with a similar product are only two reasons of many why it often poses an insurmountable obstacle for companies – not only, but mainly in the field of technology – to acquire new financial investors.
Scope-of-protection Analyses & Freedom-to-operate Analyses
Through scope-of-protection-analyses and freedom-to-operate-analyses, the patent law firm Meyer-Dulheuer MD Legal Patentanwälte can help you circumvent these barriers. In scope-of-protection-analyses, on the one hand, the strong points of your patent portfolio are emphasized and the scope of protection defined. Infreedom-to-operate-analyses, on the other hand, we will identify potentially threatening patents of your competitors and help you assess to which extent your competitor could hinder or even block your business activities through his IP rights. With these measures, we enable you to define new business fields which may then be established by developing patentable innovations and, thus, help you maintain and improve your position in the market.