Our Expertise

Venture and Cleantech IP Practice


IP Advantages helps investors eliminate or ameliorate intellectual property risks. We value their investments properly and identify opportunities to strengthen the IP assets underlying the investment. We provide accurate and thorough freedom-to-operate assessments; evaluations of the strength of an investment’s proprietary technology position; and targeted advice to address key business risks and opportunities in a venture investment’s licensing and partnering portfolio, including possible litigation outcomes.

We also leverage our IP-related experiences in traditional industries to the emerging cleantech sector. We assist venture capitalists and other alternative energy entrepreneurs and investors in performing intellectual property due diligence on investments relating to technologies that rely on or promote renewable and sustainable resources. We work actively in both start-up ventures and established companies within the cleantech sector in the creation and protection of patent portfolios and property. We are currently actively involved in several projects ranging from coal-to-liquid, coal gasification, batteries, mobile communications, and solar technologies.

Services we provide typically include:
  • Conducting due diligence;
  • Evaluating and analyzing intellectual property portfolios;
  • Developing and strengthening patent and technology portfolios;
  • Strategically advising on how to deal with overlapping patent and technology positions;
  • Identifying the competitive aspects of an investment’s technology;
  • Performing detailed and complex freedom to operate analyses;
  • Assessing business risks and challenges in licensing and commercialization agreements and providing practical advice on addressing them;
  • Strategically advising on how to best position a business through partnering and licensing;  
  • Creating innovative solutions to ameliorate IP impediments;
  • Collaboration with experienced and insightful IP litigators to assess possible litigation outcomes;
  • Evaluating inventorship issues;
  • Providing guidance on legal issues involving academia and institution-oriented technologies; and
  • Identification of potential licensing opportunities.