SUFFERN, NY, June 20, 2002- General Patent Corporation (GPC), a patent licensing, enforcement, and intellectual property (IP) consulting firm, will mark this year its 15th anniversary of spearheading the rights of inventors and advising corporate and university clients on IP strategy and management.
Founded in 1987 by Alexander Poltorak, Ph.D. as a patent licensing and technology transfer organization, General Patent Corporation has since grown into a leading IP management company. Headquartered in Suffern, New York, with satellite offices in Russia and Eastern Europe, GPC provides IP strategy and management to corporate and academic clients. However, above all, GPC is known as a premier patent licensing and enforcement firm championing the cause of individual inventors and small R&D companies.
"Our patent system is fundamentally unfair to inventors," said Alexander Poltorak, GPC's Chairman & CEO, who co-authored with Paul J. Lerner Essentials of Intellectual Property, recently published by John Wiley & Sons. "A patent is a bargain between an inventor and the State wherein the inventor is induced to disclose an invention in exchange for a limited monopoly," he explained. "A patent, however, is little more than a right to sue for infringement. With the cost of patent litigation in the stratosphere, this right is largely academic. While requiring an inventor to disclose information sufficient to enable others to practice the invention, the government fails to enable inventors to exercise their rights."
For the last fifteen years it has become the mission of General Patent Corporation to enable inventors to enforce their rights. "By leveling the playing field we make the patent system work," says Dr. Poltorak. GPC has been successfully enforcing the IP rights of inventors who, without GPC's help, might never have benefited from the results of their life's work.
The efforts of GPC have netted millions of dollars for inventors (and also for GPC), which championed the cause of individual inventors in their "David vs. Goliath" battle. The economics of patent infringement litigation dictate that patent owners work with a firm like GPC. "Litigation costs for a typical infringement action range upward through $2 million," says Mr. Lerner, GPC's Sr. Vice President and General Counsel, "making it difficult for most inventors to go it alone." So, GPC has gone to bat to preserve the patent holder's rights, and in the process has generated considerable licensing revenues.
In one patent enforcement campaign, GPC has generated many millions of dollars in royalty revenues through the licensing and enforcement of a portfolio of four patents. That one campaign, among GPC's most significant, involved over a dozen infringement lawsuits and has resulted in more than 40 licenses covering over 90 percent of the PC cards sold in the US.
Licensees include such major companies as IBM, Motorola, 3Com, Boca Research, Xircom, Zoom Telephonics, Conexant, National Instruments, TDK, and Keithley Instruments.
Aside from patent licensing and enforcement, GPC has been advising established businesses on how their companies can extract maximum value from their intellectual property. IP audit, IP valuation, IP strategy, patent portfolio mining, patent portfolio management, and technology transfer are some of the services that GPC provides for corporate clients.
"Patents are the currency of the knowledge-based economy," said Alexander Poltorak. "We help our clients to leverage their patent portfolio and generate tangible results from intangible assets. We create wealth from their wealth of ideas."
As GPC reflects on its accomplishments in the business of helping inventors protect their rights, the company has also logged other milestones in its focus on patent licensing, enforcement, and IP strategy and management. In the past decade and a half, GPC proudly points to building a technology transfer business with Russia. "The USSR used to have the highest number of Ph.D.'s per capita," mentioned Dr. Poltorak, a former Russian physicist himself who served in the past as the US Co-Chairman of the Subcommittee on Information Exchange of the US-USSR Trade and Economic Counsel. He added, "Today, Russia remains a highly inventive country and a largely untapped source of innovation."
IP Holdings LLC, a GPC affiliate company, is an IP incubator with a focus on developing valuable intellectual property. Among the properties are: an IP aggregation portal, IPWealth.com; a patent search software utility, PatentSleuth; and Interactive Telegames, a start up company developing technologies to enable users of cell phones to play games long distance.
For further information contact General Patent Corporation, Montebello Park, 75 Montebello Road, Suffern, NY 10901-3740; telephone: (845) 368-4000; e-mail: info@ generalpatent.com or visit www.generalpatent.com.