You know that intellectual Property is now a big asset and have filed your invention for grant of patent as a strategic business tool for your organization. But without proper management of your Innovation you cannot achieve that business goal. You have to manage your Innovation to maintain a stream of products and services to the market. At each and every stage effective protection and management of your IP is needed as the key to survival and vitality.
Acquire it ------------------- Manage it
Invention- how to generate? (Mapping)
Brainpower has always been an essential asset. But it has never before been so important for business and development. Deciding upon a specific area of your R&D is the most crucial part. Locating a problem is state of the art and finding its solution best addresses the requirements of the customer as well as markets. Involving the employees in generating ideas should always be a welcome step. Once you have identified a problem and started working on its solution, there should be a close watch on all the developments and experimental results as you never know when and how an invention may be encountered. After the work has been done partially or completely, there is a requirement of its mapping with respect to the current market statistics. IP policy should be such that there is no leakage of the information from the divisions until they are properly protected.
Invention- Does it any worth? (Valuation)
A property cannot be managed if it is not measured. Accurate and effective valuation is a vital aspect of good IP management. Valuation of an IP and associating it with a numeric value should be done taking in consideration the future market trends, technology, claims, term of the patent right and associated rights. Patents might not work well as property if patent law is not implemented effectively. Without understanding the actual potential of invention and its exploitation, it is worthless to implement the innovation. The incentives pattern of an innovation varies over time, across industries, market place, technologies, and type of inventor.
Invention – where to file?
Since a Patent right is territorial in nature one need to protect in the individual countries where one needs to avail the Patent Rights. Deciding the countries where the patent is required to be filed is also a crucial step as there are involved investments in many forms. One should evaluate the value of the patent right in each country separately according to their respective market statistics. Accordingly one may chose a PCT or Convention route to file patents in more than one country. The former is advisable only when the number of countries where one need Patent rights in large (say more than 5-6).
Invention- how to protect from other?
Protection through IP is never the end of the story, infact it is just a beginning. One need to protect the right of Patent from being infringed by others. One should be vigilant enough that no generic/look alike technology is developed using the protected invention. Keeping a close watch on the developments in the state of the art as well as markets is the way out. Further, you should always keep improvising the current invention with due protection simultaneously to develop a portfolio of a complete technology to further enhance its value. There should be a good balance of new products, processes, and business & service innovations in a portfolio.
Invention- is it free to operate? (FTO)
Owning a patent does not grant a company or individual the right to commercialize its products, processes or uses – it simply provides the means for stopping others from using your invention without permission. To ensure that the company or individual is free from any threat of infringement of third party rights a freedom to operate (or infringement clearance) study needs to be undertaken on each and every aspect of the process or product, its production methodology, its formulation and its use. Freedom-to-operate (FTO) opinions provide risk assessments relating to infringement of granted patents and potential infringement of pending patent applications. FTO opinions are an important part of making good business decisions. These studies need to be carried out early in development of any product or process or use etc. and where patents are identified which may affect freedom to operate strategies can be developed to work around the patents, challenge the patents, obtain licenses or avoid wasted investment. The company may choose to devise non-infringing processes and formulations of the product which are free from potential infringement problems.
Invention- how to grow with it? (Commercialization)
One is bound to have this question in mind as soon as an invention is protected. A patent right doesn't grant the patentee an automatic right to commercialize it. Getting an invention protected and commercialized are two different steps.
Generate Ideas
Generate Ideas
Evaluate Ideas against your objectives,
strategies and resources
Patented and develop product
concepts Implement an appropriate marketing strategy
(Start-up, Sell, License, JV,
VC funding etc)
Analysis of profitability (Market,
competition, costs etc)
Technical and commercial
product development (skills, advertising, branding, packaging)
Market
Response
.
Posted in: Intellectual Property,IPR
