Hilco IP Merchant Banking is a leading provider of intellectual property (IP) advisory services. We integrate IP expertise and technical experience with demonstrated business and market acumen to deliver invaluable intelligence to our clients. Hilco IP Merchant Banking supports IP teams in monetization and advises on offensive and defensive strategies. We also support product teams in the creation of winning strategies to combat competitive threats. Our goal is to empower our clients to protect and grow their businesses by helping them to understand the content and potential of their patent portfolios and make well informed IP and technology investment decisions.
We accomplish this by working closely with each client to mine its portfolio, identify the best assets, improve that portfolio through continuation practices, and identify products that are infringing existing patents. We can further assist in leveraging assets through the reverse engineering of infringing products, demonstrating infringement with solid evidence of use by mapping out the specific details of infringement in support of a company or organization’s licensing and litigation efforts. This not only provides a return on IP investment by generating additional revenue, but strengthens the overall portfolio via industry recognition of its value.
- Reverse Engineering: Acquire products/services to analyze and tear down, including circuit tracing and extraction, to provide solid evidence of use to demonstrate infringement. Our reverse engineering services prove patent value to drive licensing revenues and/or augment leverage in business negotiation.
- Premier Testing Capabilities: Develop and execute test methodologies in lab and in field, collect critical data, and prepare reports detailing test results.
- Patent Mining: Mine the portfolio to identify key assets to support licensing, litigation, and defensive efforts. Develop a continuation filing strategy around the key assets.
- Standards Analysis: Evaluate patents to determine if they are essential to industry standards.
- Claim Charts: Develop evidence of use claim charts mapping patents to particular products, services, and/or standards.
- Defensive Support: Analyze patents and products/services to provide technical arguments in support of non-infringement and invalidity.
- Prior Art Search: Search prior art from multiple sources and provide a technical opinion with respect to novelty and obviousness.
- Portfolio Development and Management: Conduct internal and external patent portfolio assessment/due diligence from a technical and business perspective to identify monetization, divestiture, and acquisition opportunities. Help develop a strong portfolio by working closely with inventors to generate robust invention disclosures leading to valuable and strategic patent applications.
- Patent Valuation: Develop valuation of patents, using industry-accepted methodologies, for divestiture, enhancement of company financial position, or M&A purposes.
- Patent Landscape: Analyze patent coverage by technology area, market, and ownership.
- IP Team Augmentation: Complement in-house IP team to develop strategy, harvest inventions, manage portfolios, and supervise outside counsel.
- Expert Witness: Identify appropriate experts, including in-house experts with deep technical experience and extensive proficiency in preparing expert reports, testifying, and working alongside litigation attorneys.
- Market Analysis: Analyze markets and identify targets and products. Develop economic models.
