Guidelines For Good IP Management System
Corporations are paying more attention to intellectual property (IP) management challenges as they examine their portfolios in quest of a higher return on investment in R&D and technology. In technology-based businesses, managing patents has become a crucial obligation, as well as a crucial component of defending R&D expenditure.
The benefits of patenting have been shown to include blocking, cross-licensing, and the avoidance of legal action in addition to the potential for direct financial gain from the invention. Given the significance and value of patents and intellectual property in general, more and more businesses are realizing the relevance of their IP department.
These divisions have exclusive strategic knowledge of the business units of the companies. In order to benefit from the unique position of the IP Department, an IP Integrated Management System has been proposed.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Important components of the IP Integrated Management System strategy include using the IP department as a knowledge base and a link between R&D and market intelligence. Other studies have concentrated on the legal issues of preserving IP, IP-related decision-making processes, the use of software to help with IP management, and even IP-related compensation schemes.
Intellectual property (IP), intellectual capital, and organizational competencies are essential for boosting business performance and economic success in today’s knowledge-driven economy. Innovations can be fully monetized thanks to intellectual property rights, a vital intellectual asset of the company. It is now a must for organizations to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to manage intellectual property and give it the weight it deserves when making strategic decisions.
Academic research outputs, primarily in the form of research papers, have increased, and commercial return in the form of wealth creation and innovation protection is considered to be both a financial and non-financial motive for expanding innovation in academia. Many of these knowledge centers have definitively defined their vision and strategy in recent decades, and they have also begun to develop cutting-edge skills at the same time. The idea of knowledge generation and transfer is the driving force behind the rising need to integrate educational output with industrial research. However, there have rarely been clear boundaries between research and development projects carried out in academia and industry. The adoption of IPRs and their management are a result of the need to close the gap between academic and industrial research activities.
Ideas, inventions, technology, artwork, music, and literature are all examples of intellectual property (IP), which are intangible at the time of creation but valuable when manifested as concrete goods or services. IP plays a significant role in the knowledge economy and creates monopolies in exchange for rewarding innovation.
The goal of the intellectual property management (IPM) strategy is to create IP, secure it, and use it to gain market share and boost profits. IPM aids businesses in assessing their patent holdings. Even technology start-ups and spin-off businesses nowadays are beginning to commercialize new and existing technologies. However, for an innovation to be successfully commercialized, other skills or resources must be combined with the aforementioned know-how.
In response to these demands, organizations created Intellectual Property Management Systems (IPMS), which guarantee the availability of data and information for strategic decision-making.
Intellectual Property Management System
A managerial and policy instrument called IPMS aids in building up and preserving the value of a robust IP portfolio. The organization’s many subsystems must contribute to the implementation of the IP strategy, which in turn aids in maintaining the IPM framework and portfolio. Additionally, this activity entails maintaining a patent portfolio, which includes enhancing the flow of possible patents for patent decision processes, managing the cost of the portfolio, valuing the patent, and choosing the best set of conversion mechanisms for extracting value from patents. In general, IPMS has five major areas of accountability, including:
- Generation of IP,
- IP portfolio management,
- IP valuation,
- Competitive assessment, and
- Strategic decision-making.
By mapping each IP asset to the firm’s products and services, creating a structure and system for IPM, and disseminating the firm’s IP assets, an IPMS assists in maintaining the complete inventory of an organization’s IP, determining the value of IP assets, estimating expected revenue, and estimating IP’s contribution to the profitability of the organization. Highlights of IPMS are:
- Formulation of IP/patent policy of the organization
- Continual IP generation process
- The need to include all the functional elements, decision processes, and, their supporting work processes and databases
- Consideration of IP as a legal document, business asset, and as tool for strategic and business decision
- Establishment of competitive assessment practices
- Developing a valuation process and building value extraction tools
- Building licensing, joint venture, joint development, collaborative research, and strategic alliances capability
Features of IP Management System
IP safeguards a product or service you’ve created that distinguishes you from other businesses and defines your company’s mission and possibilities for expansion. The true worth of IP depends on how well it can be used to give your business a competitive edge in your sector. However, how effectively IP is handled will determine its ability to be leveraged. Here are seven guidelines for creating successful IP management systems if your company wants to make the most of these intangible assets:
- Regular IP audits: The term “intellectual property” (IP) refers to a wide range of intangible assets that may be protected by patents, trademarks, copyrights, and other legal mechanisms. Companies that are just beginning to track their IP will want to start by carefully examining their current, protectable properties. Those that have already gathered this data will want to periodically review their company’s IP and the management practices in place. This can help IP owners focus more clearly, enabling them to get rid of unnecessary resources and procedures while enhancing the efficiency of more vital ones.
- Team Education: To ensure that no one violates your company’s intellectual property assets, it is crucial to educate your workforce. Verify that every employee understands how to protect the IP portfolio from errors like unintentionally sharing IP with a third party before it may be trademarked or patented. To ensure that everyone is handling IP properly, a full-service provider for global IP management can arrange for consultants to routinely meet with your team.
- Regulatory Compliance: Application filing for IP rights necessitates meticulous attention to detail and the capacity to adhere to rules that can be extremely complicated. The USPTO’s recent decision requiring foreign-domiciled trademark applicants to utilize U.S.-licensed attorneys for U.S. trademark filings is just one example of how frequently government agencies modify their rules, which can have unexpected effects on applicants. The more countries your business operates in, the more work it becomes to stay on top of each IP office’s regulations. The top IP management software options are made to assist you in meeting all international legal standards.
- Detailed Records: You can show ownership by keeping thorough records of your intellectual property. A key step in obtaining a patent is producing a paper trail that demonstrates how your innovation came to be. You must provide a specimen of use showing how your mark is used in commerce when requesting a trademark in the U.S., for instance. If it pertains to a conversation about licensing or the disclosure of an invention, even email correspondence may be crucial to keep a record of. Executives have access to an enterprise-level tool for capturing IP-related data and keeping it available to the appropriate employees thanks to a dependable software solution. To gather records in one place, users can drag & drop documentation right into the interface.
- Highly organized information: The organization of IP-related data is key to a successful IP management system. That entails more than only making sure that the appropriate information, dates, and documents are filed away in the appropriate folders. Your company may sell goods that are all protected by various patents and trademarks. You might own patents for multiple products. Additionally, you will have a ton of deadlines to satisfy for the prompt payment of issuance fees, annuities, and other expenses. Indexing data to make it easy to find when needed is a key component of effective IP management.
- Data visualization: Even a tiny IP portfolio might include so much information that trying to read and understand it all can strain one’s eyes. A dependable software program for managing IP will offer a selection of data visualizations that convey information in an easily understandable manner.
- Experience: There is no alternative to expertise that comes only from experience when it comes to managing IP. Everyone is aware that there are several deadlines and intricate filing procedures involved in applying for a patent or trademark. It takes time to become an expert in managing IP assets, but once you do, you’ll get invaluable knowledge on where to put your time and effort.
IP Management System: Efficiency
In terms of IP development and production, the key features that enhance the efficiency of the IP management system are:
- Relationship Map: Ironically, intellectual property is a major source of revenue for most businesses, but it can be challenging to understand the ecosystem that creates value. You need to know who the most prolific innovators are in order to effectively utilize the development and exploitation of IP. What goods have resulted from their disclosures of inventions? Which patented technology is present in which products? What departments inside a firm have the most IP? Which of our intellectual property rights are subject to licenses? By creating a visual web, referred to as a relationship map, a smart IP management system can respond to these concerns and more. Management and other team members can easily understand how their IP is organized, which makes it easier for them to audit the inventory at any moment or otherwise track performance.
- Automated Workflows and Team Communication: Communication is one of the main obstacles to efficiency for innovation teams. Basic meeting coordination and letter writing take a lot of time because there are so many parties engaged in processes like invention disclosure (such as the inventor, in-house attorneys, outside counsel, review boards, etc.).
The steps of invention disclosure and related IP management processes are usually simple, making automation easy. With repetitive form generation, automatic notifications and alerts, and simultaneous next-step actions, IP management solutions streamline these operations. - Patent Cost Estimation: Evaluating the maintenance and renewal expenses of patents in multiple nations might take days, weeks, or even months. How much it would cost to establish a patent asset or portfolio of patents in a specific nation should be able to be determined in a matter of minutes using a solid IP management system. And you should be able to decide on the renewal of a patent or portfolio in any specific jurisdiction very rapidly. Is it generating income for you or just sitting around wasting money? For optimal effectiveness, the generated forecasting reports can be exported and distributed around your firm to the proper decision-makers.
Conclusion
A nation’s economy is strengthened when its research and technological innovations are safeguarded because other nations will buy the new goods and services that their own countries have invented, researched, and created. Since corporations have started to aggressively protect their patent portfolios, IP must be maintained by following the business strategy and innovation processes of the organizations.
For IP to be fully utilized and an intangible asset portfolio to be created, a well-designed system is essential. It is acknowledged that IPMS serves as a support system for the organization’s development and application of a sound IPM. According to published works, organizational strength, competitor strength, and the industry sector in which the organization operates all have a role in the development of IPMS. Building and utilizing an IP-oriented culture in academic institutions is the responsibility of technical institutions. For academic institutions, maximizing intellectual creativity and advancing R&D is essential.
About TTC
We’ve constantly identified the value of new technology carried out by our pretty skilled executive crew with backgrounds as our professionals. Like the IP professionals we empower, our starvation for development is never-ending. We IMPROVISE, ADAPT, and IMPLEMENT in a strategic manner.
TT Consultants offers a range of efficient, high-quality solutions for your intellectual property management ranging from
- Patentability Search
- Invalidation Search
- FTO (Freedom to Operate)
- Patent Portfolio Management
- Patent Monitoring
- Patent Infringement Search
- Patent Drafting & Illustrations
and much more. We provide both law firms and corporations in many industries with turnkey solutions.
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