Gazelle Technologies provides a wide variety of patent portfolio management services. Patents are important for any company, and are becoming increasingly important global trade in products and services increase. In the book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman lists the quality of American intellectual property protection as one of the core secrets of America’s success and one of the few legitimate remaining barriers against competition purely on price in an increasingly “flat” world. The development and maintenance of a patent portfolio requires a significant investment over a long period of time. A single US patent can cost $25,000 over the life of patent just for the patent itself, not counting the labor necessary for the invention management process, such as collecting and evaluating invention disclosures and managing the patent prosecution process. A company may spend 0.5-1.0% of its revenue on patent related issues, such as patent portfolio management, patent litigation and patent licensing. This is a significant investment and a corporation has a right to expect a return on this investment that is at least as good as the return on investment from any other long-term investment available to the company. We have spoken with people at many companies in many industries, and in many cases we’ve discovered: § No patent strategy or a patent strategy that is not aligned with the overall business strategy § No systematic harvesting of inventions § No systematic decision process for choosing which inventions to patent Superior patent portfolio management requires many different types of skills to be combined effectively, including: § Business skills: aligning the patent strategy with the business strategy § Marketing skills: the value of a patent is proportional to the size of the market in which the patent invention is used; the price implications of a product using the patented invention must be understood § Technical skills: the technology of the invention must be differentiated from prior art; the manufacturing cost saving of the invention must be determined § Legal skills: patent knowledge is essential to understanding how to best protect an invention with a patent Gazelle’s wide breadth of knowledge allows us to interact effectively with business and marketing executives, engineers in product design and manufacturing, and lawyers. Gazelle Technologies, Inc. is incorporated in the state of California and is a privately held company. David Feldmeier, President David Feldmeier is the President and founder of Gazelle Technologies.