Fuentek in the News

Return to Main News Page

Fuentek Team Members Author Chapter in the "Bible" of New Product Development

Considered the "bible" of new product development, The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Hoboken, NJ) in 2005, provides a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of how managers can effectively develop new products—from generating the initial idea, to launching the product, to the end of its life cycle. With a contribution from Fuentek President Laura Schoppe and writer Nancy Pekar, the book now includes Fuentek's proven methodology for efficiently mining a patent porfolio.

The idea for writing the chapter came about in 2003 when Laura Schoppe responded to a request from the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) for chapter ideas for the upcoming revision of their PDMA handbook. Ms. Schoppe proposed a chapter called "Extracting Value from Your Patent Portfolio," which would explain the "Getting to the Best First" method for finding inventions that have the most promise for new product development or for generating additional revenue via out-licensing.

The book's editor Kenneth B. Kahn (Univ. of Tennessee) liked the idea, and Ms. Schoppe and Ms. Pekar started writing. Associate editor Abbie Griffin (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) coordinated the feedback from the chapter's reviewers.

The chapter discusses the fact that many companies have a valuable source for generating additional revenue that often remains untapped: their portfolio of hundreds of patents and other intellectual property (IP). In addition to the value they have provided to the company that owns them, these patents can provide value to organizations outside the company’s core business(es). The way to begin extracting that value is by screening the portfolio for the patents that offer the most promise for successful out-licensing.

The challenge in portfolio screening and making the out-licensing decision is determining how much time to spend evaluating each patent. Spending too much time uses more resources than necessary to make a good decision. Spending too little time yields information insufficient to reduce the risk of making a bad decision. The “Getting to the Best First” methodology involves conducting enough research to make an informed decision without expending resources unnecessarily. Fuentek developed this methodology and has successfully implemented it at a Fortune 200 company, a Korean licensing organization, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and a major research university (with team member Deloitte Consulting). This chapter gives readers the information they need to implement this method themselves.