Patent lawyers in companies can retain a slew of service providers. Given the huge sums of money involved in patents and their strategic importance (See my post of Aug. 13, 2008: total legal spending related to R&D spending and patents.), it is not surprising that this blog has mentioned quite a few categories of patent support services:
1. Auctioneers (See my post of Jan. 16, 2006: Ocean Tomo.).
2. Consultancies such as ipCapital Group, described in IP Law & Bus., Vol. 6, Sept. 2008 at 42, as an “intellectual property consultancy. That is also the forte of Eyal Iffergang at Project Leadership Associates.
3. Coordinators of filing and annuity fee payments (See my post of Nov. 30, 2005: Computer Patent Annuities (CPA) and its services.).
4. Invoice analysts (See my post of July 21, 2008: foreign-bill reviewers IPR IS and PTFM).
5. Networks of patent specialty law firms (See my post of April 10, 2006 # 4: Association of Patent Law Firms.).
6. Offshore services (See my post of Sept. 3, 2008: LPO service providers.).
7. Vendors of specialized database software (See my post of May 1, 2005: Master Data Center, Dennemeyer and Computer Patent Annuities.).
Many more service providers to patent lawyers are out there and I welcome any updates from readers.