Microsoft Tops 2008 IEEE Patent Scorecard

Last month, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) released their annual patent scorecard, which indicates the quality of a company’s patent portfolio.  For the second year in a row, Microsoft took home the gold by having the top score among all categories, the Imperial Valley News reports.

The IEEE’s Patent “Pipeline Power” is their way of ranking each company’s patent portfolio.  It takes a number of factors into account such as the number of patents held, year to year portfolio growth, the variety of technologies influenced, and the number of times a company’s patents are cited in applications of other inventors.  The “Pipeline Power” gives a weighted score, and provides a way to measure a company’s influence as well as the overall strength of their portfolio.

Bart Eppenauer, who oversees Microsoft’s patent portfolio, stated that the company’s evolving worldwide IP strategy is the result of global innovation combined with a strong commitment to business and technological priorities.  As he went on to say:

“As the company expands its R&D facilities and efforts around the world, we have stepped up our efforts to expand Microsoft’s patent portfolio by increasing filings with the world’s major patent offices…We are continuously improving our ability to better identify and capture the innovation taking place at Microsoft and the related IP in alignment with Microsoft’s business goals of investing in innovation to improve people’s lives and provide economic benefit to regions around the world. You can think of this as part of the overall importance of IP to economic development — IP plays a role by protecting innovations, providing incentives for R&D investment, creating economic opportunities, which all gives back to those local economies, both large and small.”

According to Eppenauer, next for Microsoft is to create a movement among worldwide patent offices to coordinate examinations, create efficiency, and build a stronger worldwide network for IP protection.

Lawsuits Making You Hot Under the Collar? Jump in the Patent Pool

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has announced a two year pilot program with Via Licensing, to aid in the development of patent pools.  The collaboration will encourage intellectual property holders to establish joint licensing programs, through which they can offer licenses and royalty rates for all patents involved in the poll, Cnet News reported.

The roles the two companies will take on have also been defined.  Apparently, Via will facilitate negotiations with the participating companies, while the director of new business ventures for IEEE, Edward Rashba, stated his company’s role would be to “build awareness.”

To put the agreement in simple terms, Rashba said that “if you’re an implementer you have a one-stop shop to get all the licenses you need to develop your product.”  He also said, “We feel we have the opportunity to address some of the key challenges facing the technology industry.”

One of the main problems concerning the technology industry at the moment is the threat of costly patent lawsuits.  Last month we reported on RPX, which is a new company that buys patents with the intent of providing licenses to their clients.  Companies pay an annual fee, and several big names like IBM and Cisco Systems have already signed up.  As far as patent pools are concerned though, they have not proven to be a very common way of alleviating all of the licensing complications.  Only about a dozen high-profile patent pools exist, and eight of them are administered by Via.

Due to the difficulty and the time it takes to develop a patent pool, Rashba stated that the goal of the agreement is to form one patent poll by the end of two years.