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There’s a lot of lip service given these days to ‘aligning IP with business goals’. Most times there’s no indication at all about how to do that or any of the practicalities. One practical matter that comes up time and again is around the goals themselves. Specific goals allow more room for compromise or pivots in the approach used to obtain what really matters. Putting it another way, an indirect strategy… Read More
Like many maturing companies, Facebook has been unwinding complexity from its business(1). What does this mean for the IP Strategy team? If you’ve built intellectual property strategies around products or services that are going to be shelved what do you do? Do you have a good understanding of the new strategy? Is there a new strategy? And if not, how can you optimize around a particular direction? If you’ve spent the time to map all… Read More
Throughout some of my recent discussion with different companies and indeed one of the reoccurring themes since I have a started studying and working in the IP field is how to guide the organization towards capturing IP value and how to effectively do this on an on-going basis. Most often an asset deemed to be “valuable IP” would fall into one or more of the following categories: assets required for the company… Read More
I have often heard that IP represents 80% or more of the value of a business, yet it isn’t being managed in any way proportional to its value. I have often thought this number curious and the idea that a CEO should therefore devote some greater portion of his time to IP directly than he may already be, at least indirectly. The error in this logic is that it supposes that IP… Read More
Classical strategy shows that the most successful organizations in any professional discipline tend to assemble good people, ideas, and tools in that order of priority. This makes sense when you think about it given that good people tend to use good ideas and procure useful tools to support them. Look at any failed organization, and you will often find that a tool or an idea became a priority above the people so… Read More
Looked at through the lens of another profession, we can often see truths about the IP professional that we may not otherwise see. Selling is one of those other professions that can shine a light on a very common IP problem. Anyone who has ever been in sales for any period of time will recognize that one of the hardest sales to make is that of the “solution looking for a… Read More
If you encountered an alien from another world and wanted him to understand the concept of what a word is, chances are you would put words (and their object or idea representation) into context with the letters from which we write them and the sentences and paragraphs for which they are a part. This is the best way to describe any system – to put it into context with a system below… Read More
Perhaps for the first time in history, humankind has the capacity to create far more information than anyone can absorb, to foster far greater interdependency than anyone can manage, and to accelerate change far faster than anyone’s ability to keep pace (Peter Senge – author of “The fifth discipline: the art and practice of learning organizations”). In business reality being satisfied with status quo is like trying to swim against the current… Read More
Guest post by Marc Kaufman Determination of the quantitative value of patents has been elusive. Complex statistical analysis and accounting methods have been applied to patents in an effort to ascribe a value to individual patents and patent portfolios. While these endeavors are useful, it is important to keep in mind the very basic elements of patent portfolio value in order to execute a patent acquisition program that creates maximum value, regardless… Read More
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