Today, we’d like to focus on IP managers, the administrators responsible for managing an organization’s IP assets and improving their value to the bottom line. In the coming years, more will be expected of these experts than has ever been the case; as a result, they will need to broaden their understanding of IP to include a broader variety of viewpoints.
The significance of a comprehensive strategy
IP management process is a complex field in many aspects. This is due to the fact that an IP professional works with assets that have specific legal definitions on a daily basis. These Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) are also subject to special laws that differ by country. As a result, even if they are not a full-fledged lawyer, they must have a broad understanding of IP law as well as the capacity to comprehend patent and trademark documentation. A broad legal grasp must be combined with a thorough awareness of the company’s goods, industry, and finances on both the macro and micro levels. Simply put, an IP manager must be as aware of bottom-line expenditures such as product R&D and fabrication as they are of the predicted value of particular patents. This has always been a part of the job description for IP managers, but it is now more important than ever.
Those in charge of IP management have always been expected to have a comprehensive understanding of the science and technology that affects their industry. Now, more than ever, managers must keep up with what their organizations’ engineers, designers, and researchers are doing, especially as technology advances at a rapid speed. In performing freedom-to-operate (FTO) and state-of-the-art evaluations, and generally contributing to the more extended development process, IP managers will gain much from cultivating such knowledge in themselves.
Managers need technological know-how as well because the tools they use to ply their trade have changed significantly. IP management solutions, for example, are progressive — at least in part — shifting to the cloud, while on-premises database storage is becoming less frequent. Some of the finest IP management software suites, such as DIAMS iQ, include both on-premises and cloud options, providing a comfortable backup for less cloud-savvy managers. Nonetheless, it is and will be essential for competitive organizations and their management to use cloud solutions as soon as possible.
IP managers will also need to have a general understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the future. For one thing, machine learning-based algorithms are at the heart of cutting-edge patent search systems, and they’re becoming more common in analytics tools. IP managers will be required to do more than just use these tools at their most basic levels; they will be asked to maximize their effectiveness. This may need restructuring or changing existing IP management procedures to align with software workflows.
An IP management system (IPMS) should have “infrastructure that, together with analytics tools, enables comprehensive IP management,” according to the panel of experts questioned in Future of IP research. As a result, it is the responsibility of an IP manager to ensure that all employees are on the same path about the IPMS and its tools. As the IP industry grows increasingly tech-dependent, this requirement will only become more urgent.
Communication is fundamental
Despite the fact that it is not a groundbreaking statement on its face, the idea that communication is important to the modern IP manager’s responsibilities is still worth mentioning. In the coming years, two major characteristics of communication will be particularly relevant to IP management.
The first stage is to increase awareness of the value and significance of intellectual property (IP) within the organization. IP is worth too much money for everyone in the company not to play some role in protecting, exploiting, and monetizing it. Intangibles account for an increasingly huge majority share of many organizations’ total assets.
The second purpose of communication is strongly intertwined to the first. IP will be seen differently by various departments within a business. To guarantee that everyone collaborates effectively, the IP manager of the future will need to understand these different perspectives and debate IP-related issues with them in mind. Similarly, when it becomes important for them to collaborate on a shared IP effort, they will need to assist various departments in understanding one another’s perspectives.
Please find the list of International IP Firms here.