Managing Patent Portfolios—Lean IP Management versus Discount IP Management or Better Few Diamonds than Tons of Coal?

Abstract

While traditional Discount IP Management focuses on the economic management of a large number of patents, novel Lean IP Management focuses on a handful of valuable ones. Discount IP Management primarily faces the question of how a high number of patents can be handled cost-effectively. Here, it is important to determine how a large patent portfolio can be obtained at a low cost, with a reduction in patent quality taken into account. Lean IP Management is concerned solely with valuable high-quality patents with the potential for economic benefit. Both, the advantages and disadvantages of these opposing concepts are compared by considering psychological and economic aspects in order to find out which of the concepts is the concept of choice for the success of an enterprise.