Three Reasons to Strategically Patent Your Cybertech Innovations

With some analysts predicting global cybersecurity spending reaching as much as $200 billion a year in five years, it’s no wonder there are hundreds of companies offering cybersecurity solutions. Attend any cybersecurity conference and the alternatives are dizzying. Listen to the pitches, and they all start to sound the same. The cybersecurity market is hot, but differentiating your company to potential customers and investors remains a challenge. That’s where patents can make a big difference. For at least three reasons it’s valuable for cybertech companies to invest in strategic patents.  

Before addressing the three reasons, let’s first discuss the difference between a patent and a strategic patent. Anyone can get a patent.  But if the patent doesn’t block competitors from stealing your revenue, your patent becomes nice artwork for your wall, but serves the company little good. The trick to strategic patenting is not to protect a specific technical solution, but to protect a class of solutions that competitors will need in order to take your revenue.  If you can do that, your patent becomes strategic, providing three benefits:

1. Increases valuation- There is a reason sophisticated investors ask so many questions about patents. They recognize that the blocking power strong patents provide translates into dollars. A patent is an asset. Whether you choose to use it immediately, or hold it for a rainy day, the ability to stop competitors is worth money, regardless of your company’s sales. Take Finjan, one of Israel’s earliest cybertech start ups.  It stopped making product years ago, and now generates millions of dollars annually licensing and enforcing its patents. 
   
   
2. Provides a marketing edge- In the competitive cybertech landscape, everyone is looking for an edge. If you are able to tell customers and investors not only that your solution is unique, but that no one else can offer it because your strategic patents block the way, you are bound to catch their attention.
   
   
3. Protects you from competitive attacks- The cold war remained cold because each side believed that the other had the missiles to cause serious harm. The same holds true with patents. If your competitors believe that suing you will result in an equal counterclaim, they are likely not to sue you in the first place. Therefore, regardless of whether you intend to enforce your patents, having strategic patents is a deterrent to suits against you. And with patent suits costing millions of dollars to defend, a much smaller investment in patents can be cost-effective insurance.