Legal Metrics and Innovation Highlighted by Argopoint’s Fortune 500 Patent Department Benchmarking

BOSTON - May 3, 2013 - PRLog -- A comprehensive benchmarking study of over one hundred senior legal executives recently completed by Argopoint LLC highlights how leading patent departments are innovating to protect their intellectual property while reducing costs. The report identifies specific management practices and related legal metrics that have resulted in multimillion-dollar savings. For this benchmarking, the companies involved had annual revenues in excess of $15 billion on average, and included the largest patent holders in the world.

The study focused on the management of in-house patent organizations, which has grown in complexity in recent years. According to the report, in-house departments are attempting to integrate attorneys within new and broader management systems designed to improve the overall effectiveness of their groups. Externally, many departments are moving to consolidate outside counsel using formalized processes and defined evaluation criteria. The study identified other innovative management approaches including: critical process improvement, foreign agent management practices, outside counsel management, staffing model optimization and technology selection and utilization.

“After interviewing numerous patent department executives, and reviewing this broad-ranging data-set, it was clear that leading departments have progressed beyond basic cost management. They are clearly employing a suite of sophisticated management approaches and tools,” noted Miklos Antal M.D. Ph.D., the study’s research director. “It was gratifying that our study was able to capture so many practical cost-saving approaches from some of the world’s most innovative companies.”

The final report, over 100 pages in length, contained specific case studies demonstrating the most promising management approaches and their impact. The study will provide a portfolio of “best practices” for the participating companies to consider.

“We are delighted to see the diversity of effective approaches that these leading patent departments are employing to make quality and cost improvements,” said Jason Winmill, partner at Argopoint LLC. “This study illustrates why legal benchmarking remains one of the most powerful tools for legal department leaders to obtain decision-grade data, insights and approaches to move their organizations forward. As legal benchmarking specialists, we were glad Argopoint was able to lead this important research.”

About Argopoint LLC: Argopoint advises and supports Fortune 500 corporate clients with an array of legal management consulting services, including legal benchmarking and outside counsel optimization. Argopoint’s clients are among some of the largest business organizations in the world. Corporate legal department initiatives that were designed by Argopoint have been featured in publications such as The Wall St. Journal, Bloomberg News, New York Law Journal, Financial Times, American Lawyer, Inside Counsel Magazine, and Law.com. For more information, visit http://www.argopoint.com.

Media Contact:
Media(at)argopoint(dot)com
(617) 742-5334

Miklos Antal M.D. PhD.
Research Director - Argopoint LLC
miklos(dot)antal(at)argopoint(dot)com
(617) 742-5334 ext. 4