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In my last post I raised a question that my mind has been dwelling on ever since…

Why do some organizations manage IP primarily as legal instruments, while others handle them like business assets?

In fact, I realize that the question is incomplete. This is because there are a whole host of other organizations that view intellectual property (particularly patents) primarily as technological artifacts. The short answer in my post was that it was an outcome of who was tasked with managing them.

I have observed over the years that when lawyers are in charge of IP, the legal perspective prevails and legal processes dominate the agenda (filing, prosecuting, defending, and asserting). When managers are in charge the focus is on leveraging, practicing, and monetizing the IP in the business operations and strategy of the company. For that matter, people with a technical focus universally seem to view patents as packages of technical achievement, and processes supporting technological achievement and innovation rule the day. I have also spent a fair amount of time with economists and business thinkers who tend to see IP as economic artifacts acting as vectors of value and innovation.

It seems that IP is one of those things which establishes its identity wholly within the eye of the beholder. It’s sort of like a Rorschach Inkblot test, where perception is heavily (if not entirely) conditioned. Of course, IP is really ALL of those things - a legal instrument, a business asset, a design or technical expression, and an economic entity. It’s no wonder there are so many differing views and interests, so much controversy, and such mystery and confusion surrounding intellectual property rights.

For me, this is a very relevant issue because this challenge confronts me on a daily basis. My work focuses on adding business processes to the management of IP. This can be easy to do when you are working with an organization that already thinks of IP as business assets to be managed and exploited like any other valuable assets. It can be virtually impossible when the organization has always viewed IP as “something lawyers do”, or even “something inventors do.”

When you look at IP, what do you see? Who do you think should be responsible for IP in an organization?

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