Planning without the ideal strategy in mind (no. 42 in our list of IP mistakes)

What is an ideal strategy and would you know one if it bit you?  Why bother with it anyway?

The ideal strategy is a strategy that provides 100% of the desired benefit and 0% drawback. It is a theoretical target given the mathematical reality that 1/0 (where whole benefit = 1, and no drawback = 0) does not exist – all strategies have drawbacks.

A key question to ask, when planning IP strategy or any other strategy, is whether your approach takes you closer to the theoretical ideal strategy or further away from it. If your strategy takes your further away from it, then the odds that your strategy will fail rises.

For example, if you decide to accept the burdens of patenting internationally without also aligning international patenting to a specific business strategy and a resource dedicated to handle the added work, than it is likely you will feel the drawbacks of the strategy at a higher level then you will experience the benefits. You may very well end up worse off than if you had done nothing new, even if by all other logic international patenting seemed the right thing to do.

(This is number 42 in our list of IP mistakes and how to avoid them.)

[image credit: Stuck in Customs]