Your Strategic
IP Partner

Your Strategy First®

Our Purpose

The world judges us based on what they can see and touch. However, at Metayage, we believe in the true value and power of Intangible assets. The entrepreneurial journey of an innovative startup founder can be extremely challenging, especially when very few believe in your inventive ideas, and most people tell you that your ideas are worthless. At Metayage, we act as a friend, well-wisher, mentor, and a strategic IP partner to nurture your idea and protect it by getting you patents that certify that your invention is unique and inventive, and give you exclusivity. We partner with you at each stage of your journey, right from idea, prototyping and launch, fundraising, scaling up to exit.

Our Services


Metayage acts as an extended in-house IP department and also doubles up as an external IP firm

Our services encompass the entire IP life cycle right from IP Identification to Monetization

International Patent Protection

We get speedy patent grants in all major markets around the world seamlessly.

IP Due Diligence

We provide clarity on patent portfolio quality, and identify red flags and provide recommendations on reducing risks due to infringement of third-party IP rights.

Patent Intelligence

We provide actionable intelligence based on patent data for Competitive Intelligence, Freedom to Operate, and Invalidating patents of competitors.

International Trademark Protection

We enhance your brand value by registering your valuable brand names, logos, and product names as trademarks in key markets.

International Design Protection

We give you an edge over your competitors by protecting your product's unique aesthetic features in major markets worldwide.

Strategic IP Partner

We act as your extended IP department and conduct IP Audits, prepare patent intelligence reports and update your IP Strategy periodically.

Why Metayage

IntellectualProperty.

Case Studies

PI Ventures

Conducted patent due diligence on Freedom to Operate and Patentability prior to Venture Capital Investment in deep tech startup.

Saankhya Labs

Prosecuted and conducted patent valuation that includes 25 granted US patents, and patents in India, Europe, Japan, and South Korea.

Niramai

International patent portfolio in the US, EPO, India, Japan, Canada, China etc. 9 US patents granted.

Numerify

17 US patents granted, related to AI driven data warehousing and analytics for Business Intelligence.

Kernel LABS

Acted as an in-house patent counsel for their portfolio companies such as Omnivor and Trusted Key (acquired by Workday, Inc).

What Our Clients Say About Metayage

Frequently Asked
Questions

Patents have an impact on the R & D, Finance, Marketing, HR and Legal departments of a company. For R&D, it protects their investment and maximizes ROI. For Finance, it increases the valuation, generates royalties and increases profits. For Marketing, it strengthens the branding, differentiation, and competitive advantage. For HR, it enables a culture of innovation, and helps to retain top technical talent. For Legal, it mitigates IP infringement risks and secures the company's valuable assets.

Since patents are territorial/country-specific, the selection of countries/jurisdictions to apply for a patent should be based on which countries are major markets, and which countries the product is likely to be made or used in. Other considerations include, the country of incorporation, likelihood of success in securing patents, ability to enforce successfully, timelines, and costs.

An IP Strategy is a systematic roadmap to align a company's business goals with Intellectual Property related initiatives. The IP strategy depends on what stage the company is in, its short and long term goals, its competitive position within the industry, etc. IP initiatives such as IP Audits. Patent intelligence, Freedom to Operate, IP protection, IPR enforcement, IP licensing and IP valuation are conducted at different stages depending on the company's IP Strategy.

The extent and scope of disclosure in a patent application should be sufficient to successfully obtain patent protection while also preserving key trade secrets to the extent possible. To obtain a patent grant, a patent application must satisfy novelty, non-obviousness, subject matter eligibility requirements, and enablement. For enablement, every element of every patent claim should be described in sufficient detail to enable a person of average skill in the technical field that the invention relates to, to make and use the invention without undue experimentation.

Especially before launching a product in new markets, but preferably even during the R&D stage, conduct a Freedom To Operate (FTO) search in those countries where you intend to launch your product. This helps to identify patents owned by third parties that your product might potentially infringe. Once these patents are identified, analyze the claims of these patents based on the specification to determine their scope of coverage. Then you can reverse engineer your product to avoid infringement, or even look at opposing or invalidating third party patents that pose a significant threat to your business.

Typically the relationship with an IP firm starts fairly early in the journey, during R&D and product development. At this stage, your company will typically not have an in-house IP department or even an in-house IP counsel. Hence, the right guidance on an IP strategy that aligns your company's requirements with IP initiatives is crucial. Transparency and clarity in communication will help you make informed decisions. Expertise and track record in successfully obtaining IP protection is another key metric to consider. Last but not least, expertise in multiple jurisdictions is critical if you want to build an international patent portfolio

Latest Blog & Articles

View All Blogs

04/Aug/2022

5 lies you’ve been telling yourself to delay patent protection

I am too busy – The truth is that if it is important and valuable enough everyone finds time for it.

24/Jan/2021

What are the patent trends in China as compared with India?

Over the past decade, the volume of patent filing in China has seen a dramatic rise.

01/Apr/2023

What are the challenges in obtaining patent protection for software-related inventions?

Software inventions are increasingly important today because they enable automation, speed, connectivity, innovation, and effective data management. Businesses who innovate using software gain competitive advantage

Metayage
Down but not Out | Metayage

Down but not Out

 

In our years of filing patent applications, we have come across many entrepreneurs and innovators. Some with such resilient and innovative minds that we crave for their patents to be granted and their intellectual property to usher huge dividends. No entrepreneur is obsolete from failure. But the ones that find a solution or lesson from every downfall and choose to stand up are inspirational and worthy of applause. 

 

Specifically in our service, inventors approach us with their ideas/Inventions, and we normally suggest conducting a patentability search. A patentability search is conducted to find relevant documents like patent applications, which are published or research papers, or products that are already on the market that might be similar to their Invention, and we give them the report of our findings typically within a week. Sometimes the search will throw up some ‘Prior Art’. 
Prior Art is anything that is made available, or disclosed, to the public that might be relevant to the Invention.  

 

We disclose the Prior Art in our reporting and share it with the inventors and we ask them to ponder and identify how their invention is different from the prior art and share their observations with us. Many times the inventors delay in getting back to us or they don’t get back to us at all.  Perhaps the fact that there is a ‘Prior Art’ acts as a deterrent and soon filling a patent application for their Invention becomes a lesser priority amongst the many things they have to take care of daily as an Entrepreneur. They either proceed with launching the product or shift their focus to doing other things that they consider more important than filing the patent.
Keep in mind, this particular step of differentiating your invention from whatever is already there in the public domain is important and not just for the purpose of getting a patent, which is giving you legal protection, but it’s important for you as an inventor to be certain that the invention is really unique, that it is really different and that it is not obvious to somebody in the same field. 

 

So many Inventors take this as a challenge, they recognised that currently, the way the Invention is defined is not really that unique or inventive. So they shift their focus and energy to work on it and improve on it further. This activity helps them come up with something, which is not only new but also contributes to the technical field. Something that is not obvious to someone of average skill in the field. Upon successfully accomplishing this, they are proud as an inventor. 

 

One of the traits of a successful entrepreneur is that you look at problems as challenges. Problems, hurdles, or challenges as simply something to overcome. The ability to solve problems and overcome them is a quality of a  great entrepreneur. It is a reflection of your Innovative trait, your persistent trait, and your determination to succeed despite these obstacles or roadblocks. We agree that some Prior Art is hard to overcome and in such cases, we advise our clients to not proceed with the application, but even so, we wish to encourage all Innovators to re-work their Innovation and develop it further, in order to better the Innovation not just for the purpose of getting a patent grant but to prove to yourself as an innovator. 
As the popular saying goes, “ As an entrepreneur and you may be down but you are never out”

 

Metayage