You would have heard of an old proverb - “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. This fits seamlessly in context with ‘Freedom to Operate’ studies (considering ideal results). However there’s always a margin for errors and considering the significance of FTO searches, the fear of litigation is always prevalent. Therefore, you need to be prepared with the defenses, evidences and arguments at your end. This is where Slate comes in.

1. SLATE
Why do you need
A centralized clearance management system
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2. One fine day, you get a call from the Vice president of the
company you’re an IP counsel of, frantically asking you.
Vice President

3. “Did you see the news? Our one competitor has sued another
using 2 patents. Both of these patents are related to the product
line we have launched last month.
Do you think we
are in trouble?”

4. Now, you’re not sure if these 2 patents were cleared
during your clearance study for your product

5. And you’ll have to ruffle through array of excel
sheets, emails, calls, to confirm this

6. However the ideal response(s) to such a
question would have been as follows:
Don't worry Lisa we've got this covered. I’ve checked this
using our online clearance management system and ...

7. I’m positive that we are
not infringing
Reply 1
OR

8. I’m positive that we are
not infringing
We have some good prior art
ready at our end to counter this.
Reply 1 Reply 2
OR

9. There is no ideal world … world
is always just what it is now…
- Isaac Marion (Warm Bodies)

10. These ideal responses won’t be possible when you have to
go through the chaos of emails, calls, and excel sheets

11. Wanna’ know how forward thinking IP groups tend
to work in such situations?
They constantly scrutinize the IP portfolios of their competitors, and
patent-assertion entities (PAE) or “trolls,” to minimize both - risk of
infringement and the need to pay licensing fees.
They recommend M&As to C-level executives in case that’s what it
takes to ensure their freedom to operate.
IP winners also buy important IP assets as a defensive measure, and
they enter into partnerships (with competitors, research institutes,
universities, etc.)

12. In short, they live by the motto:
No Surprises

13. In an attempt to make this process streamlined, many software,
IT companies have come up with different hit and miss tools.

14. A centralized tool to analyze the IP portfolios of
competitors and prepare war room strategies is
still not prevalent with the IP groups.
However,

15. All the current hit and miss solutions are
designed to work in a very
niche way, for niche players
EITHER,
too basic or abstract to provide
a useful way for risk mitigation
OR

16. Therefore, majority of such attempts tasted
little or no success in the IP industry.

17. Due to the lack of a sufficient system for risk management,
IP groups and outside counsel still prefer to work with:
Excel/Word docsWeekly phone callsEmails TrailsTraditional Reports

18. This forms an
system for managing their day to day freedom
to operate analysis.
inefficient and disconnected

19. They are outdated.
They were not originally designed for strategic freedom
to operate types of analysis.
A lot of knowledge gained through such analysis is concentrated
to a single person and is lost to any new team members
Some of the prominent problem with these systems are:

20. Without an efficient way to confirm your Vice
President’s doubt you will have to choose between
'Scylla and Charybdis’

21. Summing up, any IP counsel (in-house or outside) would be capable of
giving one of the 2 ideal ideal responses, had they been working on
SLATE that is capable of:

22. An easy access to hand curated corpus of ‘your’ technology related patents
[no frustration due to noisy dataset]
You can highlight the text
based on which your
product features of patent
has been tagged with a
particular technology
category, making it easier
for other team members to
be in pace with the
progress made

23. Intelligent and simple system to reach to those ’10 or so’ patents important to your product
without sifting through 100s of related patents [reduces IP analysis outsourcing costs]
You can highlight the text
based on which your
product features of patent
has been tagged with a
particular technology
category, making it easier
for other team members to
be in pace with the
progress made
(for legal team).
Here you can use include
or exclude filters and
funnel down to a few
most relevant patents
tagged inside Slate
[Need not to ruffel
through array of pages
for a small piece of
information]

24. Collaborative review environment with real time access to understand
(and comment on) team's progress.
You can highlight the text
based on which your
product features of patent
has been tagged with a
particular technology
category, making it easier
for other team members to
be in pace with the
progress made
(for legal team).
Here you can use include
or exclude filters and
funnel down to a few
most relevant patents
tagged inside Slate
[Need not to ruffel
through array of pages
for a small piece of
information]
Specific comment boxes
to help users make notes
(like broad and a narrow
interpretations) to be
shared with the team
working on the project.

25. The interface will
provide you with the
ability to see all tags
associated to an asset,
see specific sections
from the claims of the
asset responsible for
these tags,
add/delete/modify tags
to these assets by
highlighting specific
sections of claims,
description, figures, etc.
A simple method of performing claim by claim analysis for making
determinations

26. One patent, one review: A simple system to capture your knowledge/analysis
done for one product, easily exploitable by everybody for all future studies
You can highlight the text
based on which your
product features of patent
has been tagged with a
particular technology
category, making it easier
for other team members to
be in pace with the
progress made
(for legal team).
Here you can use include
or exclude filters and
funnel down to a few
most relevant patents
tagged inside Slate
[Need not to ruffel
through array of pages
for a small piece of
information]
Specific comment boxes
to help users make notes
(like broad and a narrow
interpretations) to be
shared with the team
working on the project.
The interface will provide
you with the ability to see
all tags associated to an
asset, see specific
sections from the claims
of the asset responsible
for these tags,
add/delete/modify tags
to these assets by
highlighting specific
sections of claims,
description, figures, etc.
You can leave a note and
also suggest a
technology category of
your preference to your
team mates working on
the project.

27. Would you like to know more?
Get in touch
www.GreyB.com