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writing from the institute

The uncomfortable parts, said plainly.

A patent can be infringed and worth nothing. A license signed years ago is the ceiling on what you can claim today. What follows is the Institute’s writing on the questions that actually decide these matters — what the claims cover, what was taken, and whether the damages case will survive.

A mechanical assembly laid out as separate parts in rows, one small component lit brightly
Royalty Evidence

Can whole-product revenue be the royalty base?

Rarely. It requires showing the patented feature drives demand for the entire product — not that it is important or a selling point, but that it is why customers buy.
September 9, 2026 · 4 min read
 Two stacks of bound contracts side by side on a dark desk, one taller than the other
Royalty Evidence

What makes a patent license comparable?

Technical and economic similarity, established rather than asserted. The failure is rarely choosing bad licenses — it is drawing from an agreement a proposition it does not support.
September 9, 2026 · 4 min read
 An empty witness chair in a dark panelled courtroom, lit from one high window
Royalty Evidence

Why are patent damages experts being excluded so often?

Because the failures are evidentiary rather than mathematical — and the remedy can be a nominal award after infringement has already been proved.
September 9, 2026 · 4 min read
 An empty desk at night with a closed laptop and an access badge left on the surface
Trade Secrets

An employee left and we think they took files. What do we do first?

Preserve, before you investigate and well before you decide whether to act. The devices go back into the reimaging pool on roughly a two-week cycle.
September 9, 2026 · 4 min read
 A steel filing cabinet in a dark room with a key still in one drawer lock
Trade Secrets

What counts as reasonable measures to protect a trade secret?

Not perfect security — evidence that you actually treated the information as secret. What defeats claims is ordinary organizational drift, not sophisticated attackers.
September 9, 2026 · 4 min read
 A single sheet half out of a folder, one paragraph lit and the rest in shadow
Trade Secrets

How specifically do you have to identify a trade secret?

Specifically enough that an opposing expert could take the description and compare it, item by item, to the defendant’s product. "Our manufacturing process" fails that test.
September 9, 2026 · 4 min read
 A leaning stack of worn technical manuals and bound proceedings under a reading lamp
Patent Infringement

Where does the prior art that ends cases actually come from?

Disproportionately not from the patent databases. Examiners search patents thoroughly and everything else lightly, which is where the gap lives.
September 9, 2026 · 4 min read
 A large printed table of dense columns on a dark desk, a pencil laid across it
Patent Infringement

What makes a claim chart actually prove infringement?

Evidence in the right-hand column. The most common weakness in an infringement report is a chart that paraphrases the claim with the accused product’s name inserted.
September 9, 2026 · 4 min read
 A brass magnifier resting on an aged technical drawing, one line sharply enlarged beneath the glass
Patent Infringement

Why does claim construction decide the case?

Because both sides are arguing about the accused product while appearing to argue about the invention — and the construction that wins on infringement is frequently the one that loses on validity.
September 9, 2026 · 4 min read
IP conciergeorientation · not an opinion on your patent
Happy to. Tell me roughly what is asserted, against what, and what stage the matter has reached. If it involves a recent departure, whether the devices have been reimaged yet is worth establishing first.