We know how to build IP portfolios, and how to put them to work.
Over ten years of IP-backed lending and patent financing. Engage us for transactions (IP-backed loans) or for ongoing strategic and tactical engagement as fractional Chief IP Officer.
What makes a good IP portfolio.
Four characteristics lenders, acquirers, licensees, and partners want to see in a portfolio. These are the standards we apply when we help manage one.
Patents map to your revenue streams.
Patents that cover what you sell — or what an infringer is selling. Claim scope written against the actual product, not against the invention in abstract. A reader can connect a patent to a revenue line without a translation step.
What a CFO or lender looks at first. The portfolio sits as an extension of the income statement — its value tied to the revenue the patents protect, not to a balance-sheet line item.
Live optionality on the asset.
Issued patents with a continuation alive, so claim scope can adjust as the product moves, the competitor moves, or the market does. Continuations planned and budgeted alongside the original filings, not as surprise line items later.
The portfolio stays maneuverable as the product and the competitive landscape move. Optionality is preserved, not foreclosed.
Claims that hold up at enforcement, licensing, or workout.
Litigation-grade claim drafting. Single-actor infringement. Continuation strategy that protects against design-around. International filings sequenced so PPH and PCT options stay open.
Claims strong enough to take to court. That's why competitors, lenders, licensees, and acquirers respect them across the table — the point is rarely going to court, the point is that you could.
Clean chain of title.
Patents and applications that trace back to the company on paper. Every inventor named and assigned. Every contractor assignment signed and on file. Acquired families with the chain reconstructed and recorded.
The first thing an analyst pulls (lender, acquirer, licensee, infringer). Available on demand, not reconstructed under timeline pressure.
This is what we look for when a portfolio comes to us for lending. It is also what we deliver when we help manage a portfolio toward those endpoints.
What a good IP portfolio can be made to do.
When the portfolio meets the four standards above, capital and commercial options become available. Each one is what a portfolio built to those standards actually enables — patiently, family by family, long before the moment to use them arrives.
Used as collateral.
IP-backed lending uses the portfolio as collateral. The portfolio in shape supports the loan because the chain of title is whole, the filings map to revenue, and the claims hold up under stress. Loans are written from BlueIron's own fund or, for larger deals, syndicated with partner lenders. Capital becomes available against the asset, on the company's timeline. Detailed mechanics on the IP-backed lending page.
Used as a licensing instrument.
Royalty income from companies that use what the portfolio covers. Cross-licensing leverage when the counterparty has IP of their own. The portfolio is the instrument the negotiation is conducted with — claim scope sized to the product, continuations live, chain of title clean. The license that gets written reflects what the asset is actually worth at the table.
Acts as a deterrent.
The threat is real even if the company never sues. A competitor's GC reviewing the portfolio sees claims that hold up, evidence-of-use that is mapped, single-actor infringement that doesn't fall apart in claim construction. That review changes their behavior — license offered, redesign initiated, or distance kept. The value of the asset is in the option, not the filing.
Holds up under acquirer diligence.
The acquirer's IP counsel walks the chain of title, maps the filings to the product, reviews claim quality. The portfolio in shape comes back approved — the diligence finding becomes a credit to the deal, not a discount on it. The work that produces that outcome is patient, family by family, long before the acquirer arrives.
Engage us two ways.
Pick a transaction. Or pick continuous management. Either way, you walk out with outcomes the business can actually use.
Transactions.
An IP-backed loan. A portfolio valuation or analysis. An enforcement assessment of a suspected infringer. A portfolio acquisition or sale. IP insurance placement. We've done each one from every side of the deal — buyer, seller, lender, insurer, enforcer.
Chief IP Officer.
Peace of mind that IP is handled by someone whose job it is. Confidence in every patent decision — each filing pointing at a business outcome, made on judgment, not by default. Patent strategy as a function alongside the business: portfolio map, continuation strategy, filing thesis, outside-counsel coordination. The IP becomes a tool the company can use — capital using the IP, leverage when negotiating, options when a competitor moves. Outside counsel stays in place; the role runs the program.
The transactional path works for a defined deal on a known timeline. The ongoing path is for companies building IP assets — and want them handled by someone who knows what to do with it.
Patents are not the goal.
You want what patents make possible. Capital using the IP. Leverage in distribution and licensing deals. Options when a competitor moves into the space.
Leverage in the next distribution agreement. Options when a competitor moves into the space. Capital using the IP when the company wants it. Positioning the company as the technology leader that grants licenses — and generates income — from its competitors.
Patents are the means, not the goal.
Patents don't compound by accident. They compound when someone runs the program as a function of the business — pointing each filing at a business decision, killing the ones that don't serve one. That role is a fractional Chief IP Officer. Without it, the program defaults to whatever the law firm has bandwidth for.
That is how the asset compounds.
Who runs it.
Built portfolios. Put them to work.
Outside patent counsel to Fortune 10 companies earlier in the career.
In-house IP counsel at an IP-heavy venture-backed startup with around a hundred patents under management. Ran the docket and continuation strategy from inside the company.
Since: years of IP-collateralized loans structured and underwritten as the lender. Working with patent portfolios from the lender’s side — what’s on the title, what the claims actually cover, what holds up if the loan goes sideways.
Engineer first, patent attorney second. Registered with the USPTO. Author of Investing in Patents. Host of the Patent Myths podcast.
Writing on the economics of patent strategy.
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Patents that work as assets — not paperwork.
Why most patents are worthless. The rubric they're drafted against — not the craft of drafting them — is what determines whether they do work later. And the decision framework that separates investment-grade patents from expensive paperwork. The book behind the practice — and the lending pillar.
MPEP, annotated
The Manual of Patent Examining Procedure with practitioner notes the official version doesn't carry.
Open →Plain-language answers
The questions CEOs and CFOs actually ask about patents — answered plainly, not in boilerplate.
Open →Investing in Patents
Read free online. The decision framework that separates investment-grade patents from expensive paperwork.
Open →Thirty minutes. Analysis of your IP and the business.
Whether you're thinking about IP-backed lending, getting the IP in shape, or just want a sense of where you stand — that's the call. If what you need is something else, we'll tell you on the same call.