William Goure PhD
- More than 30 years of domestic and international experience in the discovery, development, registration, and commercialization of chemical and biotechnology products.
- Executive leadership roles with Acumen Pharmaceuticals, Mendel Biotechnology and Monsanto, managing corporate and commercial development, negotiating contracts, drafting and executing business plans, developing intellectual property protection strategies, building and leading high performance teams.
- International experience in market analyses, product development, regulatory and public acceptance, and commercialization.
- Author of two published pharmacological research articles related to Alzheimer's Disease and the holder of eight patents or patent applications.
- All 7 Best Practices
- Pre-Meeting Discovery Process
- One-on-One Call with Expert
- Meeting Summary Report
- Post-Meeting Engagement
Linking Intellectual Property Protection to Core Business Objectives
Risks & Opportunities
Risks
Most significantly, a company without a good intellectual property strategy risks not obtaining protection for intellectual property with significant financial value.
Other risks include:
- Spending far too many resources protecting intellectual property that doesn't have value to the company.
- Misallocating resources to activities that create little, if any, value for the company.
- Inappropriately disclosing the results of science, which can preclude the ability to obtain patent protection outside of the United States or enable competitors.
- Losing significant intellectual property through improperly structured collaboration agreements or failure to contribute.
- Failing to obtain obtain rights to intellectual property of others that is required for freedom to operate.
Opportunities
A solid intellectual property strategy can protect rights to products with significant economic value and protect the intellectual property from use by competitors, including a competitor's ability to develop work-arounds to circumvent patents. Companies also can avoid spending resources on intellectual property with limited value to the company, which can help the company focus its resources in more productive areas.
Likewise, strategies for supporting academic research, or working with collaborators, can be structured to protect rights to intellectual property or help gain access to intellectual property that might not otherwise be available. Some collaborations, for instance, might involve materials for which a company has what is known as a "composition of matter" patent. This means that even new uses or combinations that include the patented material cannot be developed without licensing the original material that is part of the new product. Having that composition of matter patent in place is an intellectual property protection strategy that can be used to structure collaboration agreements.
Further, understanding how intellectual property fits into the company strategically can give you a competitive advantage in the marketplace and provide clear guidelines for what information you don't want to disclose because it can hurt you.