How do we audit our patent portfolio for strategic value?

Before scoring anything, reconcile what you actually own. In practice this means pulling assignment records, fee-payment status, and family relationships for every asset, then checking them against the docketing system. Most audits surface surprises: patents still paying fees on products discontinued years ago, assets acquired in an old deal that no one mapped, inventor assignments never recorded, and licenses or liens that encumber assets the business assumed were free. Chain-of-title gaps and encumbrance questions are legal matters to resolve with counsel, but finding them is analyst work, and finding them during an audit is far cheaper than finding them during diligence on a financing or sale.

The inventory pass also builds the one artifact the rest of the audit depends on: a product-to-patent map connecting each family to the revenue it protects, or to the empty space where revenue used to be.

Product coverage asks whether the claims, as granted, cover what you ship today or plan to ship. Competitive position asks whether the claims read on competitor products, whether competitors are filing around you, and how your coverage compares in the categories that decide deals in your market. Remaining life and cost asks what each family costs to keep across all jurisdictions and how many years of term are left to justify it; US maintenance fees fall due at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years after grant and roughly double at each stage, so age has a price. Monetization potential asks whether anyone outside the company would pay for the asset: forward citations from operating companies, adjacent industries practicing the invention, and inbound interest are the usual evidence.

Each lens produces a score, and the scores produce tiers. Resist the urge to weight everything into a single number; a patent that scores zero on product coverage and high on competitive position is a leverage asset, and an average would hide exactly the insight you paid for.

A useful audit ends in three lists and a calendar. Core assets get full maintenance everywhere they are filed and a watch on competitor activity around them. Leverage assets get a monetization screen: licensing outreach, sale evaluation, or assertion analysis with counsel. Prune candidates get a decision date tied to their next fee window, so the savings actually land. Across more than 2,000 engagements since 1998 we have found the tiered map changes behavior in a way a 200-row spreadsheet never does, because executives can act on three lists.

We run audits as a consultancy: scoring, mapping, and economics. Where the audit raises legal questions, validity, inventorship, or title defects, the analysis hands off cleanly to your patent counsel.