Turning up the volume on a quiet revolution

Inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies are dri­ving a trans­for­ma­tion that is turn­ing up the vol­ume on a qui­et IP rev­o­lu­tion.

In times gone by, IP was often regard­ed as a back-office busi­ness sup­port func­tion by the C‑suite. Detail dri­ven and heavy on paper­work, IP was often per­ceived as an unin­spir­ing but nec­es­sary cor­po­rate house-keep­ing func­tion. IP is now being right­ful­ly cat­a­pult­ed to the top of the board­room agen­da and putting the work of IP peo­ple under much greater scruti­ny.

The assets in today’s IP port­fo­lios are man­aged and trad­ed in a way that makes them the cur­ren­cy of a bur­geon­ing ideas econ­o­my. The pace is faster, com­pe­ti­tion is more intense and the stakes are high­er in IP than ever before. Lit­tle won­der that recent and exten­sive research under­tak­en by CPA Glob­al shows an indus­try of experts call­ing out that the biggest recent change in the IP indus­try is the pace of change itself – fast accel­er­at­ing and total­ly unre­lent­ing.

CORE CHALLENGES

Talk­ing to a broad cross-sec­tion of glob­al IP prac­ti­tion­ers and opin­ion for­m­ers, CPA Global’s sur­vey evi­dences a set of shared pain points in mod­ern IP man­age­ment. Diver­gent sys­tems, a lack of stan­dard­i­s­a­tion, ever-inten­si­fy­ing pres­sure on resources and scruti­ny on results are all cit­ed as typ­i­cal headaches faced by cor­po­rate IP depart­ments and the law firms that serve them. All evi­dence points to the fact that it’s time for a game-chang­ing shift in approach.

SHARED AMBITIONS

The research sug­gests that IP pro­fes­sion­als are look­ing for sup­port across the entire IP life cycle. They want soft­ware, ser­vices and infor­ma­tion that can fos­ter IP col­lab­o­ra­tion and val­ue-cre­ation across the full breadth and com­plex­i­ty of their organ­i­sa­tions. They are look­ing for sim­ple, seam­less solu­tions that deliv­er enhanced vis­i­bil­i­ty and sup­port bet­ter, more joined-up work­flows and com­mu­ni­ca­tion that make the busi­ness of IP man­age­ment eas­i­er and alto­geth­er more effec­tive. More­over, they want to see infor­ma­tion man­age­ment that is bet­ter inte­grat­ed and com­bines inter­nal and exter­nal data and insight to sup­port smarter IP deci­sion-mak­ing.

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, IP peo­ple see tech­nol­o­gy as the lynch­pin that will trans­form work­ing prac­tices, mak­ing the busi­ness of IP sim­pler, faster and more con­ducive to achiev­ing real-time results. But they also recog­nise that IP will always be a peo­ple busi­ness, where cod­i­fied knowl­edge, expe­ri­ence and intu­ition have a role to play. Thus tech­nol­o­gy must play an impor­tant, but empow­er­ing role in the deliv­ery of next-gen­er­a­tion IP man­age­ment excel­lence – con­nect­ing peo­ple, process­es and infor­ma­tion in new and agile ways.

MULTIPLYING IP VALUE

The wish-list for pro­fes­sion­als describ­ing the future of IP is exten­sive – sim­ple, intu­itive, joined-up prod­ucts and ser­vices; infor­ma­tion at their fin­ger­tips; expert resources on tap with broad and deep knowl­edge that is easy to access and apply. Prod­uct and ser­vice syn­er­gies from a sin­gle sup­pli­er that mul­ti­ply the val­ue IP depart­ments are able to deliv­er. Part­ners that help to cre­ate clear com­pet­i­tive advan­tage at a pace which puts prac­ti­tion­ers well ahead of the game.

Evi­dence sug­gests that IP pro­fes­sion­als are already shift­ing their focus in response to mar­ket pres­sures. Last year, Innog­ra­phy, CPA Global’s inno­v­a­tive infor­ma­tion and ana­lyt­ics divi­sion, asked cus­tomers how they were using their prod­ucts. Back in 2014, patent port­fo­lio man­age­ment, licens­ing, and research and devel­op­ment were top pri­or­i­ties for the appli­ca­tion of IP insight. But by 2015, com­pet­i­tive intel­li­gence, a busi­ness-focused use case, had jumped to the top of the leader board. Merg­ers and acqui­si­tions, and oth­er busi­ness-focused use cas­es, had also increased dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

With a 45-year her­itage and unmatched scale and scope across a trust­ed glob­al net­work, no one is bet­ter equipped to deliv­er end-to-end sup­port and unlock the true val­ue of IP

But what is dri­ving this change to busi­ness-focused use cas­es? In short, it is the increas­ing threat of com­pe­ti­tion across almost every indus­try, dri­ven by tech­nol­o­gy con­ver­gence and the explo­sion of infor­ma­tion in the pub­lic domain. More­over, glob­al­i­sa­tion and the grow­ing strength of Chi­na in the world econ­o­my may be deliv­er­ing new mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties, but these come hand-in-hand with a body of patent data that is grow­ing at an unprece­dent­ed rate.

Organ­i­sa­tions are hav­ing to respond quick­ly. Change is no longer an option, it is clear­ly a neces­si­ty. Here­in lies the burn­ing plat­form that is forc­ing the IP rev­o­lu­tion to the front pages and front of mind for C‑suite exec­u­tives the world over.

TAKING ACTION

CPA Global’s chief exec­u­tive Simon Web­ster explains the action his organ­i­sa­tion is tak­ing based on the project out­puts. “Our recent research has tak­en us clos­er to our cus­tomers than ever before,” he says. “They’ve expressed their aspi­ra­tions for the future of IP and we’ve heard them loud and clear. We’ve relaunched our glob­al busi­ness on the strength of the insights we’ve gath­ered and we’ve re-engi­neered our port­fo­lio to deliv­er an alto­geth­er bet­ter con­nect­ed, inte­grat­ed and col­lab­o­ra­tive expe­ri­ence.

“For us this is a trans­for­ma­tion that has been some time in the mak­ing. With a 45-year her­itage and unmatched scale and scope across a trust­ed glob­al net­work, no one is bet­ter equipped to deliv­er end-to-end sup­port and unlock the true val­ue of IP. Analysing more than four mil­lion patent updates each week, we have our fin­gers firm­ly on the pulse of infor­ma­tion in a fast-chang­ing mar­ket­place, which means we’re well equipped to lead our indus­try to the next lev­el.”

A clos­er look at CPA Glob­al reveals that the busi­ness is cer­tain­ly posi­tioned to deliv­er on this promise. The organ­i­sa­tion has been build­ing capa­bil­i­ty sig­nif­i­cant­ly in recent years. In 2014 they acquired lead­ing search experts Lan­don IP and brought IP infor­ma­tion inno­va­tors Innog­ra­phy on board in 2015.

Now, under a sin­gle, glob­al brand, the busi­ness offers a prod­uct suite of soft­ware, ser­vices and infor­ma­tion to sup­port the entire IP life cycle, pre­sent­ed as much-need­ed help and sup­port for IP pro­fes­sion­als look­ing to play their part in an IP rev­o­lu­tion.

For the full report The Future of IP, vis­it cpaglobal.com/future