Management is Dependent on Data

In any aspect of business management, whether it’s managing teams, projects, or intellectual property (IP) development, leadership needs to know they can fall back on data to tell them if they’re achieving their objectives. Staying abreast of specific outcomes is crucial to resource or budget management, assigning team members to the most productive roles, and communicating the next steps necessary for success. Many innovation teams hit an obstacle, however, when they try to organize that data and convey the most important messages to their colleagues. That’s where visualization and reporting tools come in.

When you’ve built the perfect innovation and patent strategy for your organization, it can be easy to turn your team loose and expect the process to just fall into place. Execution can easily go awry, however, and any delays or obstacles that crop up during the process can derail that perfect plan. While the timing and methods by which businesses carry out their innovation process may vary, there are some tips that can almost always be applied to enhance cost-effectiveness and productivity. Read on to learn five of those tactical tips.

The term “innovation stages” tends to conjure up the vision of end-to-end development of intellectual property, from conceptualization straight through to patent approval. One of the most significant periods within those stages, however, is the invention disclosure period. Invention disclosure is a process in and of itself, with its own sub-stages and steps. IP management software makes a significant impact on the disclosure process, so we’ll hone in on its specific sub-stages for the content of this article.

 There are some factors in your competitive marketplace that will always be out of your control, like a competitor’s introduction of brand new technology, or a radical change in consumer trends and tastes. Those factors will certainly influence how much product you’re able to move and revenue you will generate once you introduce something to the market, but there are other factors that can effectively raise the value of your IP by lowering the investment costs. Three primary influencers on IP development costs are the hours devoted to the invention disclosure process, the labor costs associated with those hours, and any barriers, mainly rooted in internal communication, that prevent organizations from introducing their product to the market.

The IP development process can be drawn out over dozens of months, while on other occasions it can be accelerated to a few weeks. Although the timeframe may vary, there are a few core milestones in the innovation workflow that will always be met in order to give inventions life, protection, and profitability. Here are the seven steps that businesses must follow in order to successfully convert their ideas to proprietary assets, and some recommendations on how your company can accomplish those steps.

Even if you’ve built a collaboration team that’s continually producing intellectual property (IP) and checking in on its status, it’s important to know how innovation management software fits into the business process. The truth is that those types of software are analysis and enablement tools. Products like Decipher give both team- and organization-level leadership a view into employee productivity, financial information, and strategic direction.

The speed at which your business can develop protectable intellectual property (IP) can determine your survivability. If the competition does it faster, they’re able to launch their products and realize profits in your stead. But speed isn’t the whole business equation. As you pour resources into your new innovation, your margins steadily shrink. Patent creation costs and other protective measures contribute to that margin shrinkage. Luckily, just as organizations are able to forecast their development costs based on materials and personnel, they can also make some predictions for their patent spending and manage accordingly. While patent costs vary, here are a few characteristics that can help you maintain some cost control:

In business environments that are fueled by innovation, diligent budgeting and spend management can mean the difference between sinking and swimming. While introducing new intellectual property (IP) can increase a business’s net worth from a revenue standpoint and by increasing the likelihood of procuring investor funding, it’s by monitoring resource investments that a business can successfully budget for the future.

Intellectual property (IP) is very often what differentiates your business from a competitor’s and makes you more valuable in the market. Considering this, it’s absolutely vital to ensure your patents and other IP are protected from infringement. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) defines patent infringement as, “...the act of making, using, selling, or offering to sell a patented invention, or importing into the United States a product covered by a claim of a patent without the permission of the patent owner.” In simpler terms, IP infringement is theft.

Performing an internal intellectual property (IP) audit is vital for businesses hoping to maintain visibility into the revenue and expense attributed to their IP portfolio. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), formal IP audits should be conducted both during pivotal events for the organization, such as a merger, and in response to internal changes in strategy, personnel, etc. However, it is a good idea to perform regular reporting and “informal” audits to ensure production and innovation efforts are measuring up to the organization’s overall strategy, too. Regardless of the type of IP audit, there are a few important characteristics to analyze that act as indicators of success for IP Management.