CMS for IP

Content Management for Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property: Copyrights, trademarks, PATENTS & Trade secrets

Nia Jovan Andrews | IP in a Digital Environment | 5/19/17

Positioning Your Intangible Assets for Success

           It’s difficult for someone to say that your business or you as an individual can avoid litigation. Many organizations have years of information, documents or manuscripts that are now either outdated and still in paper form and need to be converted to an electronic database for easy retrieval. It is important in this current age of developing technology to provide solutions, database software ideals and workflow management for businesses to keep-up, maintain consistency and grow. Determining the value to certain documents and deciding if they are necessary to keep or destroy with understanding Intellectual Property organization leaders can apply a discerning eye to the keep or destroy process. Areas of focus should be: 

• Document/Electronic Imaging ~ capturing paper-based information and convert it to electronic images that are stored in a computer electronically.
• Document Management or Document Management Services (DMS) ~ use of a computer system and software to store, manage and track electronic documents and electronic images of paper-based information captured through the use of a document scanner.
• Retention Schedules ~ Keep and destroy of documents; Identify, capture, classify, and transfer/dispose electronic records; Develop a business classification scheme, controlled vocabularies, and a metadata model for managing records; Leverage content analytics and metadata to automate management of electronic records; Plan defensible and secure retention and disposition of electronic records.

IP due diligence is essentially an audit to assess the quantity and the quality of intellectual property assets owned by, or licensed to, a company, business or individual. Due diligence is always the safety net for failure. Regardless of where you are performing some good due diligence is healthy. Business leaders have to determine the direction of growth for the organization. Then, search other companies that have already accomplished what you are desiring to accomplish; evaluate the structuring, how they grew capital, and some of their shared failures. It would not hurt to review any licenses that they have, and registered trademark or copyrights. Also any past lawsuits or pending litigations. This kind of research should be a part of any business venture that in the long run you will not regret. It’s important to:

·       Evaluate the quality and quantity of IP whether its trademarks, copyrights, patents or trade secrets 

·       Evaluate and document the process in place that captures all intellectual property assets, owned and licensed 

·       Identify each link in the chain from inventor to owner or licensee

·       Identify each link in the chain from inventor to owner or licensee

• Cross-reference each supporting document that validates each link in the chain from inventor to owner or licensee, such as an employment contract, collaboration agreement, joint venture agreement, assignment from a student, assignment from a contractor, consultancy agreement, license, material transfer agreement, consent from a joint owner, etc.

IP owners need an internal reference that will help identify issues like gaps, wrinkles or defects in order to fix them. Also, so that the due diligence can be used as a reference to IP buyers, venture capitalists or licensee ~ although they will conduct their own it makes transaction much easier and quicker when an IP map is available. 

What is Content Management?

Content Management is a set of processes and technologies that supports the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. When stored and accessed via computers, this information may be more specifically referred to as digital content, or simply as content.

Whether it is digital content or simply content in the age of the digital environment most activity within organizations take place on the internet in a cloud space or shared network.

The content a company has to maintain for day-to-day business, contracts or business structuring is very critical to the sustainability to that organization. Although content management is not an overlooked part of businesses these days, considering the management of intellectual property within that day-to-day structure is.

Your intellectual properties (patents, trademarks, copyrights and business methodologies) are intangible assets. Without them the lifecycle of your day-to-day workflow would most likely not exists. Let’s consider the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Coding Manuals. The association’s mission is to promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health. But, the medical world would suffer tremendously if the association did not have CPT codes in order for hospitals, physicians and surgeons to get paid through insurance companies for patients. According to the association, The AMA holds copyright in CPT and use or reprinting of CPT in any product or publication requires a license. To use CPT codes in a product that will be sold or distributed to others, you have to obtain a distribution license. In order to obtain the distribution you have to go through their website and submit an application this process takes place in a digital environment.

What Are Companies’ Focus in Content Management?

Automation

In order for businesses to compete now-a-days, they have to have some sort of presence on the World Wide Web. It’s almost impossible to create a presence if your business does not have its content available digitally. Automation by content management definition is the creation and application of technology to monitor and control the production and delivery of products and services.  

Most content is managed through a content management system that is typically owned by a third party and an organization licenses the use of the system to manage the content that they own and should have registered rights to.

For example, many companies use IBM owned content management system, SharePoint. This system allows organizations to use, edit and disseminate content throughout that can be seen by many employees who may not be at the same computer but all have access to the shared content. Website owners use content management systems like Joomla to maintain content for their websites. These systems are licensed to the user but the user owns all of the content used on the system.

Protection & Privacy

           When companies use content management systems the content that they are preserving digitally is most likely what creates the lifecycle of the company. Putting content into a CMS, prevents data breach and provide trade secret protection. The advantage of CMS is that it guards against fraud and helps comply with regulations. It also reduces risk by aligning the company to eliminate what is not needed. CMS, gives companies a way for checks and balances along with an electronic footprint.

Copyrights Role in Digital Content Management

           Copyright material is all over the internet. A copyright is the exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same. There is a wide range of material that can be covered by a registered copyright. Considering the internet, it’s difficult to keep track of the use of one’s works.

           To make copyrights more plain and simple: it is the original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression. So for example, an author generates a blog that is a resource for people that houses written material created by the author and is original work. This author should have ownership of the title of that public medium so that there is ownership of every item published on it. So, the website's name should be published through the U.S. Copyrights office as a website or publication in order to protect your original works. An author should not stop there, they should also invest in a content management system that will maintain their published works and give them a digital footprint.

Trademarks Role in Digital Content Management

Many may not be able to see how Trademarks fit in the category of content management, but the point is to help businesses get to a place where they are managing their intangible assets that are valuable to the flow and consistency of business. Sometimes it is necessary to move into licensing or even later become a franchise or sell the business. In order to make either transaction easier the due diligence for the buyer should be considered. The best way to consider this is if your business already has its valuable intangible assets in a system where they are managed.

Chicago has a well-known chicken shack, Harold’s Chicken Shack. The brand began in 1950 on the south side of Chicago. The owner noticed the lack of larger food chains that in that time avoided black communities. When he established the chicken shack and began to expand he went with a loose franchise policy that allowed franchisees to license the brand using the name but left the personality of the location to avoid fitting a mold.

In 1950, that may have been an idea fit for the time. Because, becoming a black business owner in your own community was very important, so to be successful and not share that success for communities and business owners to grow would had been more of a disadvantage than advantage. As times have changed, managing and maintaining the brand in a more competitive market has been difficult. It’s an example that overtime the demand can increase and with that so do competition. Marking has everything to do with the brand and it alone has no value, but with a reputation it is important to incorporate quality control if licensing or franchising is going to be used to expand the brand.

Patents Role in Digital Content Management

        Patented inventions have a value based on their uniqueness and utility. With utility being functional for a machine, process or product it may be difficult to align a functionality with content, especially automation or digitizing it. But, acquiring a patent is probably the most difficult of all the other IP’s.

           A written description is required of the invention, and some certain patent applications require even more detail so that a person skilled in the art can carry out that invention. This is a requirement so that the inventor can have priority over competitors. This requirement gives the inventor proof that they possess the invention. With patents, its most wise to incorporate a CMS throughout the creation process not only does managing the process help it provides tracking for any trade secrets as well.

Trade Secrets Role in Digital Content Management

Trade Secret, according to the Illinois Trade Secrets Act is information including but not limited to, technical or non-technical data, a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique drawing, process, financial data or a list of actual or potential customers or suppliers that is sufficiently secret to derive economic value, actual of potential, from being generally known to other person who can obtain economic value or use; and is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstance to maintain its secrecy or confidentiality.

Trade secrets are very important to the companies that maintain them, not just for the value of the company, but for business operations as well. When it comes down to content management and trade secrets that need to be kept digitally most companies rely on company drives (maybe) or a storage file box that is kept tucked away in a closet or labeled with a file number in a storage warehouse. Not that it’s a bad practice it’s a dated practice. Now-a-days keep and retrieval are important. With laws changing and more companies saturating the market it is very important to have assets available. Digitizing or imaging is pretty much required in today’s business economy.

Managing Contracts and Licensees Digitally (Imaging) 

Why should we bear the burden of digitizing or imaging? Because, business growth requires it! Overtime it becomes apparent how important document management is. Some companies still have thousands of boxes that stores information about their intangible assets. Sometimes much of the kept documents are stored beyond their destruction date and the company is paying for the real estate that is housing them. Along with that they sometimes have unused space on their drives that could house the electronic copies of the one or two sheets that are considered vital to the company. The workflow of all content should be simpler for companies. Furthermore, although it may seem like a burden to digitize and make an electronic copy of documents it as a way to make companies better for their future and easier to transfer to electronic content management.

According to the Judicial Business of the United States Courts, IP cases filed in the US District Courts are rising. Content Management cannot prevent litigation, but it can prepare you for a good triumphant fight. Now in 2017, changes are being made and lobbying is taking place and things are moving fast. Laws are changing, in trade secrets alone the May 2016 the Defend Trade Secrets Act was passed by the Obama Administration that places trade secrets with patents, copyrights and trademarks when it comes to bringing a misappropriation claim. Content Management for Intellectual Property provides companies with an internal references. It is an internal check and balances that assists in the maintaining, managing and protection of what makes a business valuable to the marketplace.