Postal Service needs help monetizing their intellectual property
The U.S. Postal Service owns trademarks, service marks, patents, copyrights, trade secrets and other proprietary information. Last week the Service published a request for proposals to help them assess where they are with their intellectual property and what strategies they should adopt going forward.
“The purpose of this solicitation is to procure services to obtain a supplier who possesses specific subject matter expertise in the areas of intellectual property (IP) strategy, the monetization of IP portfolios and the development of Intellectual Asset Management practices. The purpose of this contract is to evaluate the U.S. Postal Service’s current IP strategy and define the steps, based on current industry best practices, needed to develop a comprehensive strategy for developing, managing, and monetizing IP.”
Background: In 2011 the Office of Inspector General reported the Postal Service has 329 global families of patents, and each “family” of a patent may have a multiple number of U.S. and international patent documents. The study specifically looked at three patents to assess their commercial significance were they licensed. It was estimated those three patents alone hold a commercial value of more than $18M per year. The report concluded that the Postal Service did not manage its portfolio of patents to maximize commercial significance.
Responses to the RFP are due April 19, 2013.