Intellectual Property Law

Developing a Foreign Filing Strategy

By Sheppard Mullin

The ever-increasing reality of the global marketplace has, for many years, driven U.S. companies to seek intellectual property protection beyond the nation's borders. Unfortunately, the reality they face is that global patent protection, and even multi-jurisdiction protection, is prohibitively expensive for all but those entities with the deepest of pockets. This, coupled with practicality problems associated with patent enforcement in foreign jurisdictions, has driven companies to develop a more strategic approach to foreign patent filings. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to foreign filing strategies. Each company must consider its business model and channels of commerce for its products, its business goals and objectives, desired utilization for its intellectual property items, and its budgetary constraints in developing a foreign filing strategy that is best suited for its needs while maximizing return on investment. Tough decisions must be made along the way, but with a practical value-minded approach, these decisions can become much easier and can increase the value returned for the foreignrelated expenditures.

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This excerpt was posted with permission from Thomson Reuters/Aspatore, copyright 2009, www.aspatore.com.


Authored By:

Daniel N. Yannuzzi

(858) 720-8924

dyannuzzi@sheppardmullin.com

Full post as published by Intellectual Property Law on May 13, 2009 (boomark / email).