The Intellectual Property (IP) strategy for a business is derived from the product development strategy which in turn comes from the overall business strategy. The questions that an IP strategy must typically answer are what products that are sold by the business, or processes used by the business, should be patented and what kept as trade secrets, and what defensive patents should be sought in areas that the business might not directly participate, but might want to protect anyway. A well thought out strategy maximizes the value of a product portfolio by protecting valuable property from direct exploitation by competitors and from exploitation of similar inventions that perform similar functions to the protected invention.The type of patent that will be sought at the beginning of a product life cycle, or when there is no competition, will typically be broader and attempt to cover more of a new and developing field than later in the cycle, where small but still innovative changes to an existing product line allow a business to keep or improve market share against similar competitors.