Our Sycamore tool explained

Sycamore:

Sycamore is a tool that my company Chawton Innovation Services designed and developed to help assess a company from a trade secret management perspective.

We brought the first iteration of Sycamore to market back in 2018 prompted by major developments in trade secret law in some key jurisdictions, the growing number of trade secret disputes as well as some other trade secret related changes taking place.

Sycamore has been updated a few times subsequently.

Trade secret management maturity ladder:

Sycamore helps determine where a company sits on the Trade Secret Management Maturity Ladder.

It is important to remember that the level of sophistication with respect to trade secret management is not the same at every company.

Some companies are very advanced, protecting their trade secrets and utilizing this form of IP to gain a sustainable competitive advantage, while others are in their infancy, trying to understand the basics of trade secrets.

The trade secret management maturity model is a framework that describes an improvement path from an ad-hoc, immature approach to trade secret management to a mature, disciplined sophistication approach.

The trade secret management maturity ladder consists of well-defined steps or stages.?

As a company moves up the ladder, its in-house IP function moves from passive to active to proactive to persuasive with respect to trade secrets as it interacts with the various business units and corporate functions in the company.

The company as a whole moves from having simple recognition of trade secrets down the base of the ladder to activism about trade secrets towards the top of the ladder.

Multiple dimensions:

Sycamore looks at multiple dimensions of trade secret management, namely …

• Education on trade secrets?
• Policy and procedures about trade secrets?
• Protection methods and access controls?
• Trade secrets in Agreements & Contracts?
• Intergroup licenses and transfer pricing w.r.t. trade secrets
• Trade secret portfolio management
• Systems or tools to underpin the process?
• Trade secret metadata?
• Valuation and costs associated with trade secrets?
• The sharing of trade secrets with others
• Trade secret disputes?
• Employee know-how and organizational know-how
• Trade secret governance?

The technology:

The Sycamore runs on a secure online GDPR compliant platform.

How Chawton Innovation Services uses Sycamore:

We ourselves have been using Sycamore regularly for past two years or more, usually on companies going through some corporate event – investment round, M&A deal, JV exercise, major re-org, new in-house GC or IP Manager appointed, etc.

We typically follow a standard project plan when conducting such an exercise, although we can be flexible if and when needed

How others are using Sycamore:?

We have licensed Sycamore to a number of IP Firms in recent times, thus enabling such Firms to conduct their own trade secret management audit or assessment exercises for their operating company clients. Such Firms are permitted to change the branding and the 'look'n'feel' of the Sycamore tool as they see fit.

We have also run some Sycamore assessment exercises on behalf of some IP Firms and Law Firms for clients of theirs, where Chawton Innovation Services in essence does all of the work behind the scenes.

We have given Sycamore to a few MNE who wanted not to conduct a self-assessment but rather to assess the trade secret management maturity and sophistication of some of their key suppliers as part of their supplier relationship management process.

We are in early stage discussions with a trade secret insurance provider about Sycamore.?I suggest that it is easy to understand why a Trade Secret Insurance Provider should be interested in Sycamore.

We are also in early stage discussions with the IP Advisor to a Venture Capital Fund about possibly using Sycamore to assess some of the scale-up companies in their portfolio.

Summary:

I trust that this overview of our Sycamore tool is of interest and of value.

As stated above, Sycamore has been designed and developed to assess a company from a trade secret management perspective

Given the growing importance of trade secrets, trade secret management is now a critical issue for almost all companies.

More information on Sycamore is available on request

Donal O'Connell is the Managing Director of Chawton Innovation Services Ltd, a company focused on IP education, IP consultancy and IP solutions & tools.