The following is excerpted from a February 26, 2009 Winter Meeting presentation by Julia Elvidge, President, Chipworks available at the Licensing Executives Society website. The presentation includes perspectives from Freescale Semiconductor and STMicroelectronics on several topics including how to identify infringement in the semiconductor industry.

How do you know which inventions in your patent portfolio are used in another company’s product?

STMicroelectronic's response:

• Evaluate the third party’s product portfolio
• Compare to our company’s product portfolio for possible overlap or look for key products in the third party’s product portfolio
• Look for patents that we know cover our products in the areas of overlap or look for patents in the same area as the key products
• Reverse engineer selected third party products (including datasheet and application notes)
• Compare our patents to the selected third party products
• Then look for other patents of interest
• All of the above assumes that you have a thorough and deep understanding of your company’s patent portfolio
• FROM BROOKS UPDATES