Linking legal and marketing theories regarding secondary pharma patents

Although the seminar which takes place on the afternoon of Thursday 3 November, 5.00pm to 6.30pm, is officially an IPKat event, its subject matter is one which may appeal to many readers of this weblog too. The speaker is Dr Galit Gonen (head of European patent litigation at Teva Pharmaceuticals) and the title of her paper is "Linkages between legal and marketing theories regarding secondary patents for pharmaceuticals". The venue is the London office of Olswang LLP, 90 High Holborn, where incidentally the IP Finance weblog held its first meeting in January 2008.

A panel of experts will comment briefly on the paper (which is based on Galit’s PhD thesis) before it’s thrown open to the floor for general discussion. Mr Justice Arnold (Patents Court, England and Wales), Professor Jo Gibson (Intellectual Property Institute and Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute) and Chris Stothers (IBIL and Arnold & Porter) will be there and it is hoped that the Intellectual Property Institute's Economics Unit will also be represented.

Refreshments will be provided and registration is free. If you'd like to attend, please email Jeremy at the IPKat here and tell him. He will acknowledge your email when he can.

But who will value the patent-valuation patents?

From last week's Tech Transfer E-News (Wednesday April 22, 2009) comes this fascinating information about the fact that the "secondary patent market" has begun to generate its own intellectual property. This news item cites the work of Aaron R. Feigelson (right), an IP attorney at the Chicago law firm Leydig, Voit & Mayer and author of the 12:01 Tuesday blog.  Feigelson reports that least 14 patents US have been directed to valuing or marketing IP, and 11 of these were issued in the past 30 months. This is his list:

• 7,493,262 – Method for valuing intellectual property
• 7,386,460 - System and method for developing and implementing intellectual property marketing
• 7,346,545 - Method and system for payment of intellectual property royalties by interposed sponsor on behalf of consumer over a telecommunications network
• 7,346,518 - System and method for determining the marketability of intellectual property assets
• 7,315-836 - Method for obtaining and allocating investment income based on the capitalization of intellectual property
• 7,292,994 - System and method for establishing value and financing of intellectual property
• 7,272,572 - Method and system for facilitating the transfer of intellectual property
• 7,269,566 - Method for obtaining and allocating investment income based on the capitalization of intellectual property
• 7,228,288 - Method of repeatedly securitizing intellectual property assets and facilitating investments therein
• 7,216,100 - Method for obtaining and allocating investment income based on the capitalization of intellectual property
• 7,188,069 - Method for valuing intellectual property
• 6,959,280 - Method of protecting against a change in value of intellectual property, and product providing such protection
• 6,330,547 - Method and apparatus for establishing and enhancing the creditworthiness of intellectual property
• 6,018,714 - Method of protecting against a change in value of intellectual property, and product providing such protection

There's an opportunity for some splendid circularity here, since the patents listed here are themselves potential subject-matter for their own valuation methodologies.  European patent practitioners are probably heaving a sigh of relief that the business methods exclusions under the European Patent Convention would either render these patents invalid or cast a dark cloud over their value.