An intellectual-property e-billing solution (Honeywell International)

Honeywell International has about 25,000 patent files at any time. According to an interview in Met. Corp. Counsel, Jan. 2007 at 37, Honeywell’s Chief Intellectual-Property Counsel, David Hoiriis manages a team of approximately 36 intellectual property lawyers.

Unlike litigation or transactional matters, patent applications often spawn multiple related patent matters. An application can produce divisions, continuations, continuations-in-part and so forth, not to mention that applications may be filed in many jurisdictions. Accordingly, the IP group at Honeywell sought an e-billing package customized for their IP-world’s complexity.

The article describes well the tasks that Hoiriis and his colleagues went through to choose and implement IP e-billing solution that integrates with Honeywell’s patent docketing system (See my post of May 1, 2005 on IP matter systems.). Currently, the group uses its system to process roughly 1,000 invoices per month.