**7. Patent portfolio**

Patent Portfolio represents the group of patent applications (which are filed and pending) and patents (which are granted and active) that belong to a single entity. The patent portfolio can contain hundreds, sometimes thousands, of patents.

The patent portfolio must be valuated and analyzed periodically wherein, valuation of patents can be established, and decisions can be made on such patents in terms of licensing, cross- licensing or merger and acquisitions(M&A), or technology transfer.

The Patent portfolio should me managed through IP audits which can determine the legal status of the existing patent applications and granted patents and through valuation of each application the entity can decide to maintain the most valued patents through renewals and discard such application or patents with low value either through sale or patent pooling.

**Myth**: Patent Portfolio with enormous number of patent applications and granted patents increase the worth of such holding entity.

**Fact**: The worth of patent portfolio does not depend on the number of patent application or patents, but the working of such patents determines the actual worth of the entire portfolio.

Patenting is the strategy to uplift the innovation and innovation is accomplished when such patented technology is actually practiced on industrial scale to benefit the public on large scale. If the applicant or the patentee is not capable of working the patented product or process, the best method is knowledge transfer through licensing deals to such qualified licensee or assignment (transfer of ownership) of the patent to any interested party who are capable to bring the patent technology into market to benefit the public.

The educational institutions always encounter the issue with monetization of their patent technology due to lack of sufficient infrastructure, work force, or finance as compared to industrial standards. The technology transfer is one sort of public private partnership between the educational institutions and the private sector like industries where the technology is transferred to industrial sector in

return of some royalty through licensing and some other incentives like funding for research, or establishing collaborative or joint research, exchange of personnel, establishing research incubators or technology parks, training of students according to industrial norms and so on.
