Despite the prevalence of courtroom battles attracting attention in recent months, litigation should be considered a recourse of last resort in intellectual property management. This may be particularly true regarding trademarks, as an overzealous defense of one's branded assets could cost companies their customer loyalty in addition to the associated legal fees.

Comprehensive trademark management once required little more than cataloging and defending the distinguishing logos and phrases pasted onto a company's products and letterhead, but the age of online advertising has introduced new complexity to the matter. As web presence begins to factor more prominently into branding strategies, businesses must take care to ensure third parties are not willfully or accidentally taking advantage of any digital blind spots.

Choosing the correct intellectual property strategy to pursue can be as important as how that approach is executed. This maxim rings particularly true in the often misunderstood discipline of trade secrets management as many firms struggle to classify and protect their assets accordingly.

With government leaders confirming several cases of industrial espionage in recent months, a new bipartisan report issued by the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property calls for more evolved and aggressive trade secrets management tactics. In total, 21 distinct recommendations were made to both public and private sector stakeholders.

More businesses are coming to see that their intellectual assets are at least as, if not more, important to their continued growth as their financial holdings. But to ensure inventions simultaneously protect the company from competitors and expand its profitability, managers must adopt a more dynamic and detailed approach to identifying the most promising portions of their portfolios.

Intellectual property awareness is perhaps as high as it's ever been across the business community, and investment priorities are beginning to reflect evolving executive opinions. In a recent global survey conducted by the Legal Exchange Network, corporate intellectual property managers are increasingly willing to look outside of company walls to source the tools and insights that can help defend and grow their portfolios.

The House Committee on Small Business recently invited several prominent academic and industry experts to testify at a hearing centered on recent reforms to the U.S. patent system. While panelists highlighted several significant successes, discussion also touched upon potential hurdles to continued support for small-business interests within the innovation economy.

With more cybercriminals now shifting their attention away from petty offenses and toward corporate intellectual property theft, executive priorities are beginning to evolve as well. According to the 13th annual Law and the Boardroom Study conducted by Corporate Board Member and FTI Consulting, data security and IT risk have joined regulatory changes as the top concerns held by business directors and general counsel.

New York Senator Charles Schumer has continued his push toward patent system progress this week with a new bill intended to reduce frivolous lawsuits and thwart legal bully tactics that could curb small business innovation. Under the new legislation, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would be asked to assume a more proactive role earlier in the dispute process.

As domestic business strategies expand to include foreign markets, so too must the patent portfolios designed to protect them. In their fourth annual report of global intellectual property trends, researchers from inovia learned that 50 percent of American firms and universities filed the majority of their patent applications overseas in 2012. That figure represents an approximate 20 percent annual increase.