IP Business-Tech Solutions: Read Our Story
Who We Are?
Larry Schwartz has over 20 years of experience in IP business Analysis (VP Strategic Development), first at Aurigin (now Thomson Reuters) and then at Intellectual Assets Inc.
Previously he spent 25 years at Raychem (now TE Electronics) where he held senior management positions in business and product development as well as R&D.
Technical expert in radiation crosslinking, bio-sustainability including biobased materials, materials science, chemicals, polymers and plastics processing and formulations, nanomaterials, inorganic materials etc.
Strong domain experience in technical management, business development and intellectual property.
Specialties: Business development, R&D link to business strategic direction, competitive analysis including determining competitor's business/IP strategy, technical and business consulting, materials science (radiation cross linking, sustainability, chemicals, plastics, nanomaterials, inorganics, coatings, food, and healthcare compliance etc.)
Subject Matter Expert for the Industrial Research Institute and NSF SBIR panel reviewer; has dozens of published peer reviewed articles on technology and business management
Larry has a PhD (Chemistry) and an MBA in Business Management
Why IP Business-Tech?
After years of running R&D and Product Development, the issue of what to work on and why always haunted me. Typically a salesman who had a opportunity appeared and try to convince my team why we needed to develop a specific product. It was difficult to validate ate the salesman's claim until IP could be added to the equation. Then it became possible to search technologies and industries to determine if anyone else was working in the area. This allowed for getting a good grip on the technology, who was working on it, what were the issues and what products were being developed.
Applying this to real life sitations, it helps to determine how crowded an area was, who (if any) had the key technology leadership and how a potential entrant should react. If it is crowded with a dominant technology, entry may be discouraged until some of the key art can be licensed or worked around. In cases where there is no dominant technology or few players, entry may be encouraged particularly if the current solutions have significant issues.
My philosophy is to help companies planning new projects to understand the landscape of a technology before embarking on a project. If the technology is important, licensing it may be cheaper and faster in the long run. If the technology is embyonic, Universities and Institutes may have the best understanding and these could be advisors or partners going forward.
The same approach applies to market areas. IP and business analysis will reveal who the key players are and what are the key products and technolgies being explored. It also teaches the potential pitfalls. Take for an example a company wants to get into the flooring market. We would find thousands of patents in the area related to design, compostion, attachment etc. In composition, we would find PVC as the common material and also discover that it has issues that are being worked on in other industries (plasticizer toxicity, halogen off-gassing in a fire, lack of toughness). Understanding the problems, and potential solutions gives the entrant an knowledge of the players in the market, technologies being used and issues with them. Understanding the IP and business landscape helps a company make a more informed decision before embarking on a new product or market before spending a lot of money. This helps them make a better informed decision on how and/or whether to enter a market.
Competitive Analysis is another way of understanding what competitors are doing. We have analyzed the IP portfolio of a clients chief competitor and discovered what products they were developing BEFORE they were launched. This allowed them to offensively launch a new product before the competitor's one was launched.
IP Business-Tech Solutions uses its business and technical knowledge combined with the IP landscape to help companies make informed and better solutions!