IP resource allocation management within companies
Donal O'Connell
Managing Director of Chawton Innovation Services Ltd; 13PM Committee Chair on Trade Secrets & Know-How; Cerebral House
Managing your IP resources:
One key aspect of intellectual property management is about how one should best utilise your IP resources given that in most companies, their IP resources are somewhat limited. After all, I have yet to meet a company that complains about about having too much resource in the IP function.
IP resources in its broadest sense:
And by resource and resource allocation management, I mean it in its broadest sense, namely people, time and money.
By form of IP:
How should you divide out your your available IP resources by form of IP - patents, trademarks, copyright, designs, trade secrets, etc.?
What percentage of your available headcount, time and money should be allocated to say patent related work as opposed to say trademark related work or trade secret related work?
Oftentimes such a divsion of IP resources links I suggest to the very nature of the innovation and creativity of the company as well as its technology and product roadmaps.
Of course, such division may need to be adjusted from time to time as the world of IP changes.
By IP process:
How should you divide out your available resources by key IP process - IP creation, IP portfolio management, IP exploitation, and IP enforcement.
What percentage of your available headcount, time and money should be allocated to say creating new IP as opposed to say exploiting existing IP
Oftentimes such division of IP resource links to the very nature of the industry sector of the company and the company's relative position in that sector.
Ssuch division may need to be adjusted from time to time if and when the sector changes for whatever reason.
By layer of IP:
How should you divide out your available IP resources by layer of IP - operational IP activities layer, tactical IP activities layer and strategic IP activities layer.
What percentage of your available headcount, time and money should be allocated to operational IP activities (e.g. maintaining data integrity in your IP data management system) as opposed to IP strategic activities (e.g. deciding to embrace open source software or deciding to actively participating in a key new Technology Standard?
I suggest that such division of IP resouces links to some degreee to the IP management maturity and sophistication level of the company.
By value vs risk:
As with many things in life, IP by its very nature has both value and risk associated. How should you divide out your available IP resources along this IP value - risk axis.
What percentage of your available headcount, time and money should be allocated to the value creation half versus the risk mitigation half of this axis.
And by IP risks here, I just don't mean 3rd party IP related risks (eg. infringing a 3rd party patent) but IP risks of any form and from various sources (including 'family and friends').
By interface:
The in-house IP function is not an island disconnected from the rest of the business. It interacts with many other key functions or should - research and development; marketing; sales; operations; legal; finance; tax, etc. I would hope that it also has some relationship with the C-Suite
Interfaces are not limited to within the company. The IP function will intacts with a network of external IP Law Firms, IP Services Providers and IP Solutions Providers.
What percentage of your available headcount, time and money should be allocated to the management of each key interface, both internal and external.
Summary:
Sorry that I pose more questions here than providing answers, but I am intrigued about how companies decide when, where and how to deploy their limited IP resources, how they go about prioritising things, and if they have some structured approach to IP resource allocation management.
Any and all feedback is most welcome.
Donal O'Connell
Making the intangible tangible! - IPM Consultant and Patent Attorney -Tangible IP
1 年I think a key issue Donal is that if you put the resources into answering these questions within a week you can find it's all change! Predictability on many of the areas you question can be a challenge. IP resourcing is like road building; as soon as you build a new one it's soon full of traffic. There is always something new and positive that can be done with the extra resource. So often resource allocation in many areas is as hoc and dynamic depending on "events old boy"! In truth there are certain predictable baseloads and some less. Predictable are often outsourced to provide bandwidth internally for the more dynamic activities. I recall pitching to a global multinational. We accurately predicted that 15% of internal resource was allocated to "predictable", with over 80% of predictable externally supported. Other stuff required external support. The interesting point was that a high percentage of time was spent managing complex resource issues and not actually doing any professional advisory work. The head of IP suggested it would be great if they could outsource the management of external resources. It's quite amazing how much tolerance there is to external resources and inefficiency at the altar of caped headcount.