Assessing the evidence: semiconductor portfolio management

Patent licensing is an established and accepted part of the semiconductor industry; companies renew licences for their innovations with others in the industry and leverage these innovations regarding products in original equipment manufacturer (OEM) markets.

Licensing and leveraging rely, in part, on being able to provide evidence of use (EoU) of innovations. Portfolio owners are generally more inclined to pursue EoU where it is easier to do so. In our experience, a third of the patents in a portfolio are easier to develop EoU with established practices, and clients readily leverage these patents.

In the semiconductor industry, however, the remaining two-thirds of the patents within any portfolio will be harder to develop EoU for—and the return on investment associated with these patents can be significant. In TechInsights’ decades of experience in analysing patents, and in reverse engineering technology in support of patent activities, we have found that 14% of the EoU we have developed was in support of patents where it was harder to prove EoU.

If you are not examining the patents in your portfolio that are harder to prove EoU for, you are not leveraging your full semiconductor portfolio.

Semiconductor patent types

From an EoU standpoint, semiconductor innovations can be sorted by the approach used to prove their use:

Process: related to producing semiconductor die. This includes: