Rembrandts in the Attic: Unlocking the Hidden Value of Patents

Their advice ranges from the simple to the sublime. First, they suggest, take stock of the patents you already own. Many companies are sitting on unused patents that could be worth millions. For example, IBM licensed its unused patents in 1990, and saw its royalties jump from $30 million a year to more than $1 billion in 1999, providing over one-ninth of its yearly pretax profits. And if you can't find buyers for your unused patents, then look for companies that are infringing upon them--companies that might owe you a piece of their profits. Rivette and Kline offer "patent mining" techniques to spot such potential infringers that can also reveal where your competitors are headed and help you get there before they do. Overall, Rembrandts in the Attic is a crafty and practical guide for companies that may have untapped riches in storage. --Demian McLean

Product Description
In a world where intellectual property (IP) lies at the center of the modern company's economic success or failure, Rivette and Kline suggest that IP management must become a core competence of the enterprise. Such an approach will require a radical break from the way corporate America has historically treated intellectual property. For most of this century, patents were not seen as profit-generating assets, but rather as cost centers of dubious value. Accordingly, intellectual property issues have usually been handled as a legal function, separate from business strategy. But now CEOs and other senior executives need to become knowledgeable about IP. They will have to think about intellectual property as a major lever of value creation for their companies.

Rembrandts in the Attic shows how to utilize intellectual property as both a corporate asset and a strategic business tool to enhance the commercial success of the enterprise. Rivette and Kline present case studies of companies, such as IBM, Avery Dennison, Xerox, Lucent, Gillette, Dell, Texas Instruments, and Hitachi, which have deployed their patents as competitive weapons to capture and defend market share, outflank and out-market rivals, increase R & D effectiveness, and achieve greater results in mergers and acquisitions and joint venture activities.

The book offers tools and techniques to help companies utilize their intellectual property. The authors also devote a chapter to the so-called Internet Patent Wars-the controversy surrounding recent Patent and Trademark Office decisions to grant patents for business models, particularly in the e-commerce arena--and the rise of the Open Source Code movement and the challenges and opportunities presented by alternative IP practices.

The authors discuss patents in the light of the e-commerce revolution. They suggest the use of patents in a strategic manner. They provide illustrations and examples of successful patent strategies. Although much of what they say may be known to those who are in the race to establish business method patent portfolios, even those who think that they know what patents are all about can learn something from this book.


Rembrandts and Understanding the New Economy   October 27, 2000
Irving S. Rappaport (Palo Alto, California United States)
15 out of 20 found this review helpful

I would like to put Rembrandts into the context in which it was created. Rembrandts was conceived and co-authored by my friend and business partner of the past 15 years, Kevin Rivette. We co-founded Aurigin Systems,Inc., formerly SmartPatents, Inc., in 1992 to make it easier for people working with patents to do their work. From this beginning Aurigin and, particularly, Rembrandts, have helped transform the way intellectual property(IP) is viewed in the business community. Historically, IP was viewed strictly as a legal right, but Rembrandts shows why, in a knowledge-based economy, IP rights are one of the most fundamental business assets, that often determines the success or failure of an enterprise. Understanding the fundamental importance of IP and why it needs to be strategically managed are the underpinnings of Rembrandts. Using the book as a guide post and Aurigin's innovation asset management solutions, allows companies to: 1) understand the IP rights they own; 2) visualize how those rights fit into the competitive landscape with others' IP; 3) help determine where to place their future R&D efforts; and 4)help decide how to strategically leverage their IP rights to help determine their new business directions, increase return on investment and, ultimately, increase shareholder value. The purpose of Rembrandts was not to set forth a cookbook of how to manage IP. Rather, the book was intended to help CEOs and other business, accounting and legal professionals understand the fundamental function and purpose of IP as a highly protectable and leverageable business asset in today's economy, whether in an old-economy or a new-economy company. I believe the book very successfully achieves that purpose in a highly engaging and easy-to-read style, with many real world examples and interviews.

Rembrandts will stand the test of time and, in hindsight, it will become a business school primer on the strategic business function of IP, as well as identifying IP as one of the critical elements in the shaping of the new global economy. I highly commend Rembrandts to any business executive, entrepreneur, accountant, economist, government official, lawyer, business consultant, business school professor or student of the business world trying to understand and operate in the new knowledge-based, global economy.


Must Reading for Entrepreneurs, Inventors, and Managers   September 3, 2001
G. Brown (Las Vegas, Nevada United States)
10 out of 14 found this review helpful

Spellbinding. I laughed. I wept. How could Xerox PARC miss a $500,000,000 patent opportunity in the graphical user interface? Easy, they didn't recognize that someone else might have a use for something they had no use for. Yes, I laughed and I cried.


Right on the Money! Patents as a Major Competitive Weapon.   February 2, 2000
11 out of 12 found this review helpful

What a timely book! Rembrandts in the Attic is filled with advice for anyone concerned with intellectual property management. Rembrandts shows how to leverage your own intellectual property for competitive advantage, how get a handle on your competitors' activities by mining available resources, and how to "patent map" your own business development strategy. I highly recommend it as a "must have" in order to thrive in today's idea economy.