Patent Advisory & Monetization
If you own intellectual property - whether you sit in legal, finance, R&D, or the C-suite - you've asked at least one of these. Each one is the starting point for a project with a concrete deliverable and, usually, a number attached.
The Questions
What Each One Becomes
Probably - but you can't know until someone looks. Patent mining reviews your entire portfolio using internal metrics and AI-based analysis to surface the high-value patents suitable for licensing, sale, or assertion. This is the single most common way clients discover money they didn't know they had.
We build the evidence to answer that: claim charts, evidence-of-use analysis, and a realistic read on detectability and enforceability. If the answer is yes, we help you choose the path - carrot licensing, stick licensing, or litigation - and line up the counsel and capital to pursue it.
Portfolio right-sizing. We segment your portfolio by technology and business relevance, then identify what to keep, what to sell, and what to abandon. Clients typically fund this work many times over in avoided renewal fees alone - and the patents you'd have dropped blindly sometimes turn out to be the sellable ones.
Competitive patent landscaping. We map your coverage against competitors, customers, suppliers, and new entrants in each segment - showing where you're strong, where you're exposed, and where disruptive technology is emerging. Landscapes are built to be actionable, business unit by business unit.
The same landscape shows where nobody has filed - the open ground where your next filings create real exclusivity instead of crowding into contested space. We turn that into concrete filing recommendations aligned with your R&D roadmap.
Often, yes. Hilco is named to the Forbes Top 25 IP Valuation Firms, and our valuations are market-based - lenders and investors rely on them because Hilco is also a market maker, not just an appraiser. We also place litigation finance, securing non-recourse capital to fund enforcement without touching your operating budget.
More common a question than anyone admits. A patent taxonomy catalogs your portfolio by product coverage and technology, giving your legal team a working map for renewals, filings, and portfolio decisions. It's the foundation everything else builds on.
A portfolio-to-product mapping answers this directly - and the gaps it reveals drive both defensive filings and, sometimes, the realization that your most valuable coverage protects products you no longer make. Those patents are monetization candidates.
Beyond Patents
Hilco's Brand Licensing practice develops and runs licensing programs that turn brands into recurring, high-margin royalty revenue - strategy, deal structuring, legal infrastructure, and financial management under one roof.
If you own a brand with licensing potential, that's a separate conversation worth having.
How Engagements Work
Advisory projects - the investigation phase - come first, and monetization engagements follow from what the advisory work finds. Every step is scoped to a question it answers.
