As law firms increasingly help clients manage the growing costs of maintaining large patent portfolios, one of the most persistent challenges they face is the high cost and complexity of reviewing hundreds or thousands of patents to determine which should be kept and which can be safely abandoned. After reviewing hundreds of patent portfolios, it has become clear that while many companies do routinely abandon patents, the pattern of abandonment is often inconsistent—not because they lack strategic intent, but because executing that intent without adequate technological support is prohibitively expensive.

Law firms have an opportunity—and an obligation—to collaborate with clients in transforming this costly and inefficient process into one that is fast, strategic, and aligned with business priorities. The key is leveraging platforms like PatenTrack, which enable efficient, informed pruning with minimal burden on internal teams.

I. The Problem: High Costs Lead to Haphazard Abandonment

In theory, companies should keep patents that align with their core technologies and long-term commercial strategy, and abandon those that do not. In practice, however, close analysis often reveals a different picture: patents covering key innovations are abandoned, while marginal, non-core assets are retained.

Why? Because making informed abandonment decisions requires input from three types of experts:

• Engineers, who understand the technical relevance of the invention
• Market strategists, who know the company’s direction and addressable market
• Patent lawyers, who can assess enforceability, scope, and legal risk

These professionals are highly skilled—and highly expensive. Expecting them to spend days or weeks reviewing hundreds of patents to save on maintenance costs is rarely feasible. As a result, many companies default to superficial reviews or arbitrary criteria, leading to random or risk-averse abandonment patterns.

II. PatenTrack: Making the Process Efficient and Actionable

This is where PatenTrack delivers transformative value. Designed specifically to reduce the cost and effort of strategic pruning, PatenTrack automates much of the heavy lifting by:

• Grouping patents by technology cluster and mapping them to products or discontinued lines
• Flagging low-impact assets, such as those with no citations, no recent maintenance, or no relevance to current R&D
• Visualizing trends in abandonment and retention across the portfolio
• Creating intuitive dashboards that allow all stakeholders—technical, strategic, and legal—to contribute asynchronously and efficiently

With PatenTrack, law firms can lead the pruning process by providing clients with pre-analyzed sets of patents, targeted for focused review and action. Instead of sifting through spreadsheets or docketing systems, decision-makers are guided to the handful of patents that merit real scrutiny.

III. The Law Firm’s Role in Efficient, Strategic Collaboration

Law firms don’t just act as outside reviewers—they serve as facilitators of a smarter process. They can:

• Define criteria for what should be kept or pruned, based on enforceability, commercial alignment, or IP risk
• Coordinate structured feedback from internal client teams, using PatenTrack’s collaborative tools
• Prepare legal opinions or board-level summaries justifying abandonment decisions
• Ensure compliance with internal governance, especially when divesting or donating IP assets

This collaboration maximizes the expertise of each stakeholder, while minimizing the time and cost involved.

IV. From Randomness to Strategy: Delivering Client Value

By introducing a repeatable, tech-enabled abandonment process, law firms can help clients:

• Substantially reduce unnecessary maintenance fees
• Focus IP resources on commercially valuable assets
• Improve governance over one of the company’s most misunderstood cost centers
• Reduce exposure to reputational or financial risk associated with poor abandonment decisions

The challenge isn’t knowing that a portfolio needs pruning. The challenge is doing it well—without draining the time and attention of the company’s most valuable experts. Law firms, empowered by PatenTrack, can take the lead in solving this problem.

What was once a costly, inefficient, and often random process becomes targeted, strategic, and defensible. And for clients navigating complex markets with limited resources, that shift can be a game-changer.