Improved management of patent litigation by front-loaded allocation of in-house resources

A patent infringement lawsuit against a SME (Small to Medium Enterprise) is a difficult challenge for corporate management. Management is faced with the Hobson´s choice of either 1) paying a license fee and hurting their long term competitive position; or 2) paying outside patent litigation counsel, with the incumbent legal expenses and thus hurting the short-term competitive position of the company. This paper proposes a management model that shifts the tasks related to patent litigation from higher cost outside counsel to lower cost in-house counsel and company engineers. The objective is to reduce cost and uncertainty for a SME involved in patent litigation by using relatively inexpensive in-house resources. This model also provides management with a degree of cost certainty by using in-house expertise in the initial phases of the case to reduce overall cost and to reduce the overall project cost. This paper reviews one ongoing legal dispute involving a relatively simple technology (plastic magnifiers) and illustrates how, by using these techniques, litigation risk may be reduced over 60%.