Your IP Legal Services Prospects Are Talking to Themselves Again - Do You Know What They Are Saying?

If you have lost potential customers because someone else appeared to understand their requirements better, then read what I have to say as there is one activity that will change the fortunes of your Intellectual Property (IP) legal services business.

You need to know the conversation going on in your prospect's mind in order to attract his or her attention.

Imagine if we all thought out loud, held nothing back and did not care if anyone heard what we were saying. We'd be pretty clued up about everyone's desires, fears and frustrations (and perhaps have a few more clack eyes as a result mind you).

If you are an IP legal services professional, you have a major problem...

No-one will buy any of your services if the result of what you provide does not match or exceed desired outcomes.

On top of that, not many people will tell you why they don't want to buy from you. They'll simply respond to someone else they think will take away their fears and frustrations, ask around or go on Google to look for someone else.

What do you need to do then?

First of all, stop talking about yourself and find out what your prospects are specifically looking for. The key questions they will ask and which you need to answer are:

1. Do you know what my main fears and frustrations are regarding IP law?

2. Do you know what my desired outcome is for any service I buy?

3. Why should I select you, above all other options available, to help me achieve my desired outcome?

4. What additional benefits will I get if I buy your IP legal services?

5. What evidence do you to have to show you can address my fears and frustrations?

6. What information can you provide to educate me on how to solve my problems?

As an exercise, get the names of 20 prospects and see if you can answer all those questions for each. If you can do so with total confidence, then well done.

If not, here are a few suggestions to help you:

1. Ask! Ask your current clients what their major fears and frustrations are, what they like or don't like about your profession and what their desired outcomes are.

2. Do surveys to give people a chance to let you know what type of information they really need.

3. Speak to former clients and ask why they left you. More importantly, do not argue back! Painful as it may seem, you will be surprised by the the small things you could have changed to keep their custom.

4. Create a forum for customers and prospects to share experiences and expectations, and to ask questions. This will need moderating but if you can do it, your business will benefit if you take action on issues raised by participants.

5. Provide free information - blogs, articles, newsletters, and allow your readers to comment or provide feedback.

Remember, work on your prospects' emotions and don't just provide facts.

Once you know the conversations going on in their heads, it is easier to build a roadmap to cultivate their trust. You can then stop having to do any hard selling right at the outset of any relationships.

If you do everything outlined above, you will be selling your Intellectual Property legal services...powerfully!

But you will be subtle and very different to many of your competitors who have the traditional hard sale approach. What you will find is that more prospects will ask for you services. The roadmap you put in place should have stages that not only builds your position of authority within a niche, but regularly informs prospects about solutions to their problems and which gets them closer to you over time.

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Why the Systemisation of Client Attraction Activity is Important For IP Lawyers

Why is the systemisation of marketing and client attraction activity important for IP legal services professionals?

Well, IP lawyers have had to react to various economic, legislative and competitive pressures just like other legal services professionals. Key shifts, which many of you are well aware of, include:

Client demand for results-based, alternative fee structures to replace 'per-hour' pricing. The increasing need to combine fixed-price and subscription-based payments in some sort of 'hybrid' business model. The increased outsourcing of many back-office functions and roles to, primarily, emerging market-based organisations that can achieve cost-efficiencies many IP lawyers or full-service legal firms struggle to get. The realisation that many organisations now see IP lawyers as one of many service providers available, and increasingly use competitive bidding in the selection process.

The only way you can continue to compete and differentiate yourself within a tough IP legal services market is to take the pressure in your stride and figure out a way of making it work for you.

So why am I talking about the systemisation of marketing activity now?

The reason is simple...

It will be much more difficult to have the flexibility you need to make positive changes to your IP legal services practice if you use ad-hoc, inconsistent and ineffective marketing efforts. Think about it - what is the point of systemising your case work or interactions with legal process outsourcers without extending the same principles to your client attraction efforts?

Systemising your marketing campaigns, communications with prospects, collection of client feedback, management of referrals, etc, is great for one reason...

You streamline and reduce costs that you typically incur in your day-to-day IP legal services work. More importantly, your ability to increase your revenue and profits improves massively when your client attraction activities systematically support your core IP legal services work.

Here are just a few things that you need to systemise:

Client feedback - you simply can't make any assumptions about your clients, and need processes in place to collate feedback in a manner that is non-intrusive but shows you care. Campaign management - there is nothing worse than, for example, doing an email campaign once and giving up. Multi-step campaigns are crucial, but you also need to make sure the campaigns either point people towards information they are looking for or guide them to take specific action. You need to automate your campaigns to IP legal services prospects, and there are various tools available now that are good value and which can scale to match your desired activity. Communications with prospects and clients, making sure you have first understood the conversations going on in their minds so that you give them the information they need and are desperately looking for. Management of referrals - you need to encourage clients to give you referrals, and use customer evidence as the platform with which to enhance your word-of-mouth advertising to prospects that may be cynical about your ability to deliver great IP legal services.

When IP lawyers systemise client attraction activity, they find they can monitor and test their marketing efforts more effectively, have more time to focus on actual client-facing work and have better visibility on the number of prospects that are likely to convert to clients within a given time frame.

As an IP legal services professional, you need to develop a new, systemised business model for online client attraction. This will inevitably mean making some changes to the way you have traditionally worked, but which will get you in the perfect position to grow despite all the changes in the legal industry.

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Start-Ups and the Role of Intellectual Property

Acknowledging the fact that there are several factors and ingredients involved in setting up a start-up venture, one prominent fact is that the key element in any start-up is the entrepreneur's Intellectual Property(IP). The IP is the key initiator for entrepreneur's access to financing and technology acknowledgment, which are instrumental in providing adequate thrust to start the venture. On the contrary some business strategists hold an opinion that start-ups should make an early entry into the markets focusing upon addressing new market segments rather than entangling themselves into the patent filings and procedures. Well, from my point of view, I certainly don't buy that argument. All technology based start-ups have one thing in common that is " The new technology" itself. What's the idea behind spending huge bucks in creating, distributing brands and targeting new customer bases when your technology itself stands unsecured from IP point of view.

How would an entrepreneur deal with the consequences of infringements and technology thefts by the ever growing competitive global market. The only way to ensure protection of your technology is by securing a "Patent right" on that. As early as an entrepreneur comes up with an idea to design a start- up around a new technology, the next immediate step should be to file a provisional patent application followed by the complete specification later. Understand the utmost need of filing a patent application and securing an early priority date nationally or internationally because it might be possible that many other ventures might be working on the similar technology and will be in the race of filing the patents themselves. Looking at the stiff global competition, entrepreneurs and inventors should aim for an early patent priority date to be in a profitable situation.

From business point of view, an early stage entrepreneur with an established patent portfolio will undoubtedly draw prominent attention for financing from the investors. Looking at the vast number opportunities which an entrepreneur enjoys after attaining IP rights on their respective technologies or inventions, I wouldn't mind spending an extra time to patent my technology. Start-up entrepreneurs can monetize heavily through their IP in the following forms: 1) Licensing their technologies with established companies, 2) Creating licensing Partnerships, 3) Selling their IP, 4) Reaping the benefits from royalties, 5) Damages awarded by infringements, 6) Using the IP itself. Thus, the right amount of money starts flowing in the venture, just by the value of your intangible assets like IP. Therefore, the next time you think of launching your start-up, give a comprehensive thought on the benefits of Intellectual Property which could boost your venture.

This article is an entry from my blog "Spectrum of Intellectual Property Rights". For global IPR updates and discussions refer to my blog and keep yourself updated.

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The Management of Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual Property is increasingly being recognised within organisations of all shapes and sizes as a highly valuable and also unique asset. As the UK moves more and more towards a service based economy and away from its traditional heavy industry and manufacturing base the need to manage your intellectual property is paramount as this may become your organisation's primary asset in the future.

There are three main stages to ensuring the effective management of intellectual property within an organisation.

Stage 1 - Awareness

One of the biggest challenges facing many organisations is a lack of awareness and understanding about what their IP actually is. This is the base level skill in the management of IP and until everyone throughout the organisation is aware of what constitutes their unique intellectual property then it is impossible to move onto stage 2 - protection.

It is this lack of awareness of what constitutes an organisation's IP that leads to vital information being casually given away with no thought as to its value. This is admittedly more common at the junior level within organisations but can happen at the most senior levels too.

It is vitally important for all organisations to analyse what makes up their IP and then not to stop there but to take it to the next level which is ensuring that all staff are aware of this. Once this is achieved the management of IP within the organisation can move onto stage 2.

Stage 2 - Protection

Having ensured all staff are aware of what the organisation's intellectual property is it is then possible to concentrate on protecting this valuable asset at all costs.

The law relating to IP is in parts complex but overall is there to protect the owners of the IP. A simple training programme may be all it takes to get everyone thinking about how they can protect the intellectual property of the organisation. Alternatively the creation of a simple checklist to use upon receipt of any request for information can go a long way towards the protection of IP.

Stage 3 - Maximising the value

Once everyone is aware of what constitutes their IP and what can be done internally and / or legally to protect this you can then move onto stage 3 of the management of intellectual property.

This is the stage where opportunities can be sought out to maximize the value and return on IP rights. Take the example of a university that has done a great deal of research into a particular area that has commercial application. Should this simply be given away for free? Of course not, everything has a market value and intellectual property is no different.

Simply by brainstorming potential opportunities many organisations have come up with incredibly innovative ways to enhance the perceived value of their IP rights and ensure their own continued success.

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Getting Intellectual Property Advice That Counts

In order to prevent your special idea or invention from being stolen by another or possibly devaluing it you need to know how to use intellectual property law properly. The legal frameworks contained within this area of law are complex but are there to help you.

However, this area of the law can be very complicated and it is important to have the right Intellectual Property advice from specialist solicitors with the necessary expertise and experience in this field and to get it at an early stage.

Choosing the right type of protection.

When it comes to protecting your work there are a number of variations of IP when to property protection that could be used, and specialist intellectual property solicitors will be able to tell you exactly which one you need to use in order to ensure that you have watertight cover for total peace of mind. You should remember that whilst there are four main types of IP protection, in some cases it may be appropriate to use more than one of these and even to use all of them to ensure that your work is safeguarded against IP infringement.

The four main types of IP protection are:

Design Rights: This form of protection is aimed at protecting the visual appearance of an object or creation, such as the shape and other aspects of its appearance.

Copyright: This type of protection covers a range of different areas/work, ranging from written creations and recordings to artwork and photographs, to name but a few.

Patents: The form of cover is designed to protect the processes that make something work as well as the methods that are used to make a creation work.

Trademarks: A trademark is a symbol, such as a brand name or logo that makes goods or services easily distinguishable from other similar goods and services.

Your intellectual property solicitors will not only determine which of these is the most appropriate for you but will also ensure that it is put into place as quickly as possible. The different variations of IP protection are all designed to safeguard against infringement and IP crime. This includes piracy, counterfeiting, plagiarism, using your work without your permission, etc. If anyone infringes your IP once this protection is in place your solicitors will then be able to provide appropriate intellectual property advice on the right action to take, which could include a simple letter asking infringes to desist, negotiation for sale or license of some or all of your rights to the infringer, dispute resolution out of court or going through the courts.

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Intellectual Property Advice - Cooperative Patent Searching

A patentability search (also known as a prior art search) is an important first step before investing in intellectual property. When done properly, the search helps determine the patentability of an idea and the scope of the innovation. The search will also help to focus drafting of a patent and a search by a qualified professional and will help convince investors of the value of your patent.

Proper searching and interpretation of search results requires effort and understanding of intellectual property law. For this reason, it pays to use a qualified patent professional (a patent attorney or agent). If you are hiring a law firm to do the search, find out who actually does the searching. You may be paying a law firm a premium price to have a lay-searcher do the work. Individual attorneys or agents may do better and less expensive searches than a large firm. If you use lay-searchers, have them sign a non-disclosure agreement before you give them any material describing your invention. Before using a lawyer, get a detailed description of the work he is agreeing to do and a cost estimate.

Two heads are better than (and sometimes cheaper than) one. An important trick to making a good search is cooperating with your attorney. Before asking a lawyer to perform a prior art search, you should do some preliminary work yourself. Firstly, a conclusive patent search must be based on a well-defined idea. You need to give the searcher a clear, concise description of your invention. You should also supply your searcher with a list (preferably in writing) of close competitors and closely competing products and some idea of the significant difference between your idea and their products. Also supply the searcher with a glossary of specialized terms that you feel might be applicable to your invention (and definitions for terms which differ from their Standard English meaning). It is imperative that you listen to your attorney. Get your attorney to describe what she considers the substance of the invention and look over the preliminary search results. Do the results appear to be relevant to your patenting objectives? If not, clarify why. Did the attorney see some significance that was not apparent to you? Did he misunderstand the invention? Is he focused on marketable aspects of the invention? Did he misunderstand the prior art? Are the technologies compatible?

A detailed search generally needs to be an interactive process. If the preliminary search results are not on target, help your attorney focus her search to more relevant prior art and to more essential aspects of the invention. In the end you should clarify not only whether the idea is patentable, but exactly which aspects of the idea are patentable.

There is a second kind of search, a freedom to operate search. A freedom to operate search determines whether you may freely practice your invention without infringing on another patent. A freedom to operate search applies only to a very specific invention. If your invention isn't yet clearly defined and in final form, a freedom to operate search is probably a waste of time and money.

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Why You Need a Non-Disclosure Agreement Template

No matter what type of business you are in there is always going to be some information that does not need to be made public as it can harm either the company or your clients. While you probably lock your important files away in secure filing cabinet when you are not in your office and have installed security encryption software on your electronic files to keep prying eyes out, have you stopped to think about your employees? In order to make sure that they understand the importance of keeping your company information safe you may need to use a non-disclosure agreement template to draw up a document for each employee to sign stating that they will not disclose any information.

This type of agreement is put in place to ensure that any information pertaining to your company and your clients will be held in the strictest confidence. It is used particularly where the sharing of information must occur between two companies but not be released to the general public. It can also be used in the freelance writing world where a ghost writer is hired to produce information that will be published under another person's name as a way to ensure that the writer does not attempt to claim responsibility.

The agreement should not only explain what information is to be held in the strictest confidence but what steps will be taken if there is a breach. Not only should it cover any disciplinary actions that will be taken but it may cover provisions for legal action should the breach create a situation where litigation on behalf of the client whose information has been made public. It should also explain how the confidential information should be treated and what safeguards are in place to prevent a leak.

In order to make sure that the non-disclosure agreement template you are planning to use is going to adequately protect both your sensitive information and that of your clients, you should download several samples from a variety of online sites. Review each of them carefully to see which one is best going to represent your needs and meet with the legal requirements of the state that your business is located in. You can hire an attorney to do the work for you, but chances are he is going to do the same thing and download a template from the Internet and charge you a lot of money for something you can do for yourself for little or no money.

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2 Important Intellectual Property Tools Every Small Business Owner Should Know About

Small business owners have lots of intangible assets: photographs, website copy, sales brochures, and so on. These are all considered "intellectual property" -- you own the copyright to anything your business creates for itself.

But what about when you hire someone from outside the company to create something for you, like sales copy or web design? Who owns that? And what if you find that your intellectual property has been stolen?

There are two forms every business owner should know: the Work For Hire Agreement, and the Cease and Desist Letter.

Work For Hire Agreement

Anything that your company's employees create for the company within the scope of their employment is the intellectual property of the company. But when your business hires someone from outside the company -- such as a freelancer, or independent contractor -- the rules change.

Independent contractors (who work on their own time, with their own materials) are the legal owners of the work they create, regardless of whether or not someone hired them to do so -- unless a Work For Hire Agreement was signed that names the business as the copyright owner.

A Work For Hire agreement is not a complex document; it just needs to include the necessary information about each parties, the commissioned project, and details about the agreement. Both parties will sign the document.

Cease and Desist Letter

Now that you've established ownership over your website, images, or literature, what if someone else uses it without your permission? How can you stop them?

It's easy, provided you register a copyright for your material; copyright law says that you need an official registration before bringing a lawsuit. But there's a much cheaper, quite effective option that you might consider before thoughts of a lawsuit enter your mind: sending a Cease and Desist Letter.

This letter is a simple one as well: it is sent from you, the copyright owner, to the party using your intellectual property without permission (or that party's lawyer, if you that have one and you know who it is), and it demand that they... well, that they cease and desist what they're doing.

The Cease and Desist Letter should include the names of both parties, the title or description of your material being used improperly, and where you found it (the URL). It's helpful if you can include copyright registration information (the date and number), emphasizing how seriously you take this matter.

With the Work For Hire Agreement and Cease and Desist Letter at your side, you'll be able to manage your business's intellectual property.

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How To Protect Your Intellectual Property: 4 Easy Ways To Protect Your Intellectual Property

1 a- Intellectual property indicates a range of different rights some are registered rights some are unregistered. Registered rights: these are granted on application to an official body such as the UK Intellectual Property Office. Registered rights are monopoly rights, in other words once registered, the owner can stop others from using the right without permission. They include patents, trademarks and registered industrial designs. Unregistered rights: these arise automatically, give protection against copying or using the right, and include copyright, unregistered design rights, rights in unregistered trademarks and confidential information.

Starting from a marketing strategy campaign, this should establish a clear link between your products or services and your company, as the producer or provider of such products or services and a (strong) trademark is the most important tool for traders to differentiate their goods from those of other traders.

IP combined with other marketing tools (such as advertisements and other sales promotion activities) are crucial for:

• Differentiating your products and services and making them easily recognisable; • Promoting your products or services and creating a loyal clientele; • Diversifying your market strategy to various target groups.

You may be interested in expanding an existing business (extending your territory or the nature of business) or improving the quality of the goods or services of your company and thereby its market position. In many situations, licensing of intellectual property rights is an effective tool for achieving these business goals.

A licensing agreement is an arrangement between an intellectual property owner (licensor) and another who is authorised to use such rights (licensee) in exchange for an agreed payment (fee or royalty). A variety of such licensing agreements are available.

As an intellectual property owner and a licensor, your company can expand its business to the frontiers of your partners' business and ensure a steady stream of additional income. As a licensee, your company can manufacture, sell, import, export, distribute and market various goods or services which it may be prevented from doing otherwise.

To remain ahead of competitors, business entities must either continuously introduce radically new products and services or make small improvements to the quality of existing products and services. For this reason, innovative and creative ideas are at the heart of most successful businesses.

Ideas by themselves, however, have little value. They need to be developed, turned into innovative products or services and commercialised successfully so as to enable your company to reap the benefits of your innovation and creativity. Intellectual property rights can be crucial for turning innovative ideas and inventions into competitive products that significantly increase profit margins.

In addition, your company may use registered rights such as patents to earn royalty revenue by licensing such patented inventions to other companies that have the capacity to commercialise them. This may provide you with a stream of income from your invention or the inventions of employees of your company, without the need to invest in its commercialisation.

Your company may also use trade marks to earn royalty revenue by licensing its trade marks to other companies that have the capacity to manufacture and sale products suitable to bear your trade marks.

As far as inventions are concerned, when an invention is made, it is important to consider how and whether it should be protected before any details are published or any samples are circulated. Failure to do so can severely limit, or even wholly undermine the scope for protection. The choice of protection often lies between patenting and maintaining the invention as a trade secret under the law of confidential information.

Patents are available for most industrially applicable processes and devices. A patent confers a monopoly right as it prevents others from operating within the scope of the patent claims, even if others developed their own technology wholly independently of the patentee and were wholly unaware of the existence of the patent or of the product or process which the patent protects. In contrast the law of confidential information cannot be used against independently developed technology. The main reason for obtaining a patent is to be able to exploit the technology exclusively, either solely or by licence to third parties.

As far as trademarks are concerned, the registration confers on the proprietor the statutory right to the exclusive use of the mark in connection with the goods or services for which it is registered. The proprietor can authorise or license others to use the mark but, most importantly, registration gives the proprietor the right to sue for trade mark infringement any person who uses an identical or similar mark in connection with identical or similar goods without authorisation. There is no requirement to prove reputation or goodwill. In certain circumstances the proprietor can prevent use of an identical or similar mark on dissimilar goods.

Passing off actions are notoriously time-consuming and expensive. To succeed in such an action, the proprietor must produce evidence of his ownership of goodwill or reputation in the mark, and evidence that the unauthorised use of his mark amounts to a misrepresentation which is causing, or is likely to cause, damage.

Finally, a registered design confers a 25-year monopoly right in the design. Registration gives the exclusive right to make articles incorporating the design, allowing the owner to sue for infringement even where the defendant did not copy the design. If a registration is not obtained, the owner of the design would need to depend on: - design right, which only lasts for ten years from the end of the year of first exploitation; or - where applicable, copyright (for example, where an artistic work is involved).

In the case both of design right and copyright, the owner would need to prove that the defendant had copied the design in order to succeed in an infringement action.

This article is for general purposes and guidance only and does not constitute legal or professional advice.

Copyright 2010 © Anassutzi & Co Limited. All rights reserved. Information may be shared or reproduced only if accompanied by the author's name and bio.

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Ring Back Tones in Songwriter Agreements

A songwriting agreement often provides for a share of royalties that may vary depending on the category of use. These categories include foreign rights, movie rights, mechanical licenses, public performances, synchronization licenses, print rights, and other categories. Most agreements between a publisher and a songwriter contain a catch-all paragraph for a miscellaneous category in which the publisher and the songwriter share in the royalties on a 50:50 basis. Take care to understand that a royalty amount and a royalty share may depend on how the use of the music is categorized.

Ring tones are the sounds that alert you when someone is calling you. Ring back tones are sounds that are played to you when you are calling someone else's telephone. Mobile retail companies offer music packages including ring back tone systems bundled with services for downloading complete song tracks. One business model is for a consumer to pay a monthly subscription for ring back tones. Unfortunately, the mobile phone operator usually receives the monthly fees but does not share that revenue with the publisher.

The ambiguity for ring tones and ring back tones lies in the fact that they can fit in the mechanical license category, the foreign license (if tone used outside U.S.), the public performance category, and the miscellaneous category.

For clarity, one should ensure that the songwriting agreement expressly state the royalty share between publisher and songwriter for ring tones and ring back tones. Otherwise, your share may become the lesser of the possible categories stated in a boilerplate agreement.

©2011 Frederic M. Douglas. All Rights Reserved.

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Intellectual Capital - The Foundation of Corporate Value

Many analysts would agree that intellectual capital is at the heart of corporate value. It is the foundation for the market dominance and continuing profitability of leading corporations. Intellectual capital comprises intellectual property (IP) held by a corporation, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets, as well as intangible assets including at least reputation or goodwill, brand recognition, product designs, and market positioning.

A company's value is highly associated with its commercialization of products and solutions based on owned or licensed patents in the markets served, as well as the company's resulting position relative to competitors in its market space. A company's growth prospects within its market space often depend on product positioning, the underlying protection afforded by its patent portfolio, and brand recognition.

The strategic value of a company's products and the underpinning intellectual property is supported by strong branding and reputation assets in relation to the competitive environment in which it may operate. Thus, a cornerstone of corporate value is the marketable package of intellectual capital owned or licensed by the company comprising at least patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, reputation, brand, and market positioning.

The market value of intellectual capital equates primarily to the present value of the future economic benefits of ownership or license within the operating context of the owner or licensee. That is, the market value is driven by the expected cash income that can be derived from future exploitation of the intellectual capital by the owner or licensee. Alternatively the market value may be driven by prospective purchasers (e.g., system integrators or manufacturers) that can leverage IP related products, reputation, brand, and product positioning to help secure greater market share. The expected cash income that could be realized by prospective purchasers may comprise revenues generated directly from the sale of the IP related products, systems, and solutions, or further comprise revenues derived indirectly from these products, systems, and solutions as a result of their incorporation into a larger commercial solution sold in a purchaser's market space.

Key factors that drive corporate value are the amount of future income expected, the likelihood of realizing that income, and the life and pattern of the income stream expected. All of these factors are highly influenced by the composition of a company's intellectual capital including patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, manufacturing knowhow, product designs, drawings, specifications, supplier lists, product reliability, and operational importance to related solutions and associated cash flows.

Strength and enforcement of intellectual property rights, commercialization track record, product acceptance in the market space, brand recognition, and low volatility in revenue or royalty all contribute significantly to value. Clearly formation, protection, and management of intellectual capital are essential for success in driving and protecting corporate value, and must be an important focus for senior corporate executives. A business focused IP strategy and effective processes for capturing corporate innovation and creating intellectual property are primary starting points.

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How IP Lawyers Can Build Managed Service Business Models With Guaranteed Revenue Streams

Just think, for a moment, about the impact legislation and competition has on your Intellectual Property legal services business. The increasing demand for client-centric services, and the lingering perception that lawyers have little interest in doing what is best for their clients, means IP legal services professionals have to do a lot more to demonstrate their value in order to win, and retain, customers.

Now, you may be one of the many IP legal services professionals that find themselves doing what appears to be a endless cycle of activities that seem transactional and, more often than not, tedious. Let us take a basic example, the continuous filing of patent application updates. This is very common and there is always the tension with clients when trying to agree the terms and conditions, plus associated costs, if the process takes longer than expected. The end result is that you find yourself fire-fighting on a transaction-to-transaction basis, which then governs the relationships you have with your clients.

The major disadvantages with this scenario are:

You have less opportunities to prevent clients moving to a competitor other than competing on price, which then hits your bottom line. Clients see you primarily as one of many possible IP legal services professionals they can pick to get a transaction completed. It is hard to predict revenue growth as there is no guarantee clients will use your services in 6 or 12 months time.

Now, some IP lawyers might think they are successful enough operating in such situations because they are busy, and have a steady stream of clients paying for the filing of patent applications (as per the previous example). If you are one of these, then you need to analyse what you are busy doing and if this really helps you grow your business effectively. Sure, you can do more of this, hire more people to cover the extra work coming in if you are lucky enough to attract it, and feel great. If that is your definition of success, then there is probably not much I can do to change your mind.

However, given my focus on relationship building, I am more interested in methods that increase customer life-time value. What can IP legal services professionals do to deepen relationships with prospects and clients, and get paid according to the increased value they bring to the table.

When you focus on lifetime value, you do all you can to create, measure, monitor and continually re-work processes that get clients thinking about the benefits they gain from using your services. And nobody else's.

There are three things you have to do to start this off:

Look at your current client base and... Find out how long they have been with you and how much money they have paid you. Calculate how many times you have had to negotiate prices in order to keep them on board, or the number of times you have had to discuss prices due to the volume of work you do. Find out how they made, and evaluated, the decision to work with you. Have you exceeded their expectations? Ask them how they feel about your services, and what they are NOT happy about. Based on the feedback you have gathered, start to develop a subscription/managed service-based value proposition. Key features within this should include:

A fixed price or range of prices for a given period (e.g. one to two years), during which you specify what you will deliver. The client then knows upfront how much they will be charged and the benefits of the service you will provide. Always remember - clients will always pay if they feel they are getting better value than alternatives. You don't have to quote cheap prices as this will negatively impact the perceptions clients have of the service you intend to provide. Regular communications with clients to keep them updated on key issues that affect them or to help them answer questions they may have. This needs to be systemised as well, and does not mean contacting each and every client with a different message. Newsletters, email updates, webinars, etc all work well. Just make sure you know how your clients like to get information. A clear explanation of the benefits clients will get from the managed/subscription service, and how this is much more cost effective than paying per transaction. This is, perhaps, the most important step of all - DO NOT IGNORE IT! An evaluation of roles within your practice so that IP legal services professionals focus on client service and delivery, while other activities are delegated or outsourced. The subscription / managed service business model forces you to think about how to deliver great services without incurring unnecessary costs. If you are not getting paid by the hour, you want to make sure you don't over-commit resources to get results for clients. Monitor client feedback like there is no tomorrow. This helps you keep track of expectations and gives you an idea of the kind of information you have to provide on a regular basis (using a systemised communication process) to take away any client pains and frustrations.

That is just the current clients. What about prospects?

Well, I'll repeat the phrase I used in a previous post...

How you attract and win clients will determine the value they attach to the relationship with you, and how long they stay with you as IP legal services clients.

If you want to attract high quality clients and get them to think about the value they would get from your managed IP legal services, then all the information you provide once they enter your sales funnel as prospects has to guide them towards that end-goal. It may seem easier to try and primarily focus on new clients for managed services if you are too scared of losing older, transactional-focused clients. That is not true. It will be a nightmare trying to make the changes to your behaviour and IP legal services practice to deal with managed service-type relationships, while keeping a large chunk of clients on the old business model.

A hybrid-model that combines the two types of relationships will be the norm, but you really want to do what the big management consultancies do - move to multi-year contracts that help you manage finances and relationships much better. That should be the goal, even though you don't do it 100%.

What I have highlighted above will be painful for some IP legal services professional and will, quite frankly, stop them trying to make crucial changes to their practices. As IP legal services professionals, you have to think about the external pressures you face and how you react to them. The status-quo is being hammered from different directions, and your focus on customer lifetime value has to be top of mind.

Just thinking about it will not help either. You need to take action - and that is what is going to separate the winners from the ones that just muddle along wondering why they work ridiculous hours with no rewards.

All the client attraction (and retention) activities you do have to support your end-goal - starting from the target niche you identify... to understanding what is going through the minds of your prospects... to the position of authority you develop... to the campaigns you run directing people towards information they are looking for... right up to the strategic services you provide which your prospects will want to ask you for.

Don't think lifetime customer value does not apply to your IP legal services practice. It does, and should. You have a duty to yourself and to your clients to provide great experiences and deliver great results so that your clients WANT to stay with you within a trusted, financially beneficial relationship.

Do You Need a Lawyer to Respond to a UDRP?   What Is the Protection of Business Names Under Intellectual Property Law?   Hire Patent and Trademark Attorney to Accelerate the IPR Procedure   Every Innovative Irish Idea Deserves to Be Protected Correctly in Law   Intellectual Property Infringement and Patent Law   

Starting Your Career As An Intellectual Property Lawyer

It is important to understand what 'intellectual property law' is in real sense. It is a law that defends the creations of designers, musicians, authors and inventors, hence everything that is the product of human mind.

Generally, an intellectual lawyer is considered as multi-talented professional who specializes in copyright law, trademark law, patent law, and trade secret law. An intellectual property law is responsible for drafting patent applications and other legal documentation. He favors his clients and defends them against infringement. Intellectual property lawyers need to have technical as well as entrepreneurial backgrounds in order to deal with the cases properly.

1. Earn your four years of college or university degree with good grades and an overall high GPA. During your college or university period, try to develop some skills such as reading, writing, reasoning, problem solving and analytical skills. These will help you in your law studies. Your selected courses normally are not important for your admission, but your good GPA surely is. Make sure that you maintain a good grades and a high GPA during your university or college time.

2. The next essential condition to get into a law school is to take and pass the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) with good score. You can take this test more than one time, depending on the score you want to achieve in the test. This test is organized by the Law School Administration Council four times a year. Your GPA and LSAT score are really vital.

3. Prepare all the documents that are required to build a strong application file. Normally, an application file includes school records, LSAT scores, a detailed resume with all extra-curricular activities and work experience if any, letter of recommendations and an application form. Many schools also require statements of motivation and admission essays. Make sure that you have all these documents in hand before the deadlines.

4. Make sure that you send your admission application form to the law school or schools before the deadline. Admission process often takes few months to complete. You can use this time to get an internship or part-time job in any law firm or any other organizations to gain some work experience before the law school starts.

5. In your first year of law school, you will learn about the basics of federal and state law system. In the second and third year you will get a chance to choose courses that you want to specialize in, to say, intellectual property law.

6. During your law school, try to get an internship in law firm deals with intellectual property cases. This will help you gain some experience about the professional working environment. Maintain some good repute during your internship, so that after graduating you might get the full time job here.

7. Earn your JD degree to get yourself eligible to sit in a bar exam. By clearing a bar exam, you will obtain your license to start practicing law as intellectual property.

Do You Need a Lawyer to Respond to a UDRP?   What Is the Protection of Business Names Under Intellectual Property Law?   Hire Patent and Trademark Attorney to Accelerate the IPR Procedure   Every Innovative Irish Idea Deserves to Be Protected Correctly in Law   Intellectual Property Infringement and Patent Law   Why You Need a Loan Modification Attorney When Your House Is On The Line