Patent Liquidity For A Silicon Valley Inventor

by Wayne Willis on October 28, 2011

[Opt7_Microdata_Person_805335782]was CTO of a company I once led, and he recently brought me a request I can't respond to. Can you help?

Jacek's been granted two patents. The first is Patent No. 7,263,381. I linked to it below.

The second patent is a part of two-part divisional patent, where the first part is in the last stages of being granted (payment, and issuance - early November). It's application number 20050075102, more fully described here as a "personal-call and feature control system and method for controlling telephones, providing extended features for such telephones and routing of media-rich calls."

The third patent (which is the second part of the patent application that was divided) is still being reviewed; however, it will likely will be approved, based on the outcome accorded the first part -- namely that all claims were approved.

Jacek believes that the claims in the divisional patent (both parts), especially, are broad and very valuable in the voice-over-internet-protocol (“VOIP”) and mobile spaces. He believes that the patent is likely to be a part of the current arguments among and between Google, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, and other large companies who are arguing about IP in these areas."

Jacek is not in a financial position to prosecute the patents and is interested in seeing if he can sell (or license really, really broadly) the patent(s).

How can he best do that?

Is there the equivilent of a "contingent fee" attorney who will represent the patents and Jacek's interest on a contingent fee?

Are there cost effective appraisal services who can help him evaluate the value of the client?

What would you do if you were in Jacek's position?

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FIRST PATENT - SEE http://bit.ly/sKxywX
Application Number: 10/898,544 Customer Number: -
Filing or 371 (c) Date: 07-26-2004 Status: Patented Case
Application Type: Utility Status Date: 08-08-2007
Examiner Name: NGUYEN, KHAI MINH Location: ELECTRONIC
Group Art Unit: 2617 Location Date: -
Confirmation Number: 2926 Earliest Publication No: US 2005-0059389 A1
Attorney Docket Number: 037015-0352314 Earliest Publication Date: 03-17-2005
Class / Subclass: 455/423 Patent Number: 7,263,381
First Named Inventor: Jacek Tomasz Minko , San Jose, CA Issue Date of Patent: 08-28-2007
Title of Invention: SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DISCOVERING IDENTITIES AND CAPABILITIES OF NEARBY TELEPHONES

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