Who is Owner: IP Management

IP management  in recent decades is recognized as an important factor of business strategy. From an IP management perspective, the blend of business management with technology development can better exploited the benefits of the intellectual property. Ownership in the context of IP management, allows the owner to license its patents or trademarks to earn a premium. Technological interdependencies among products and services are on the rise in recent years in many industries. This trend gives the owner the opportunity to cross licensing with companies in the same or different industries while usually the underlying intellectual property are patents or trademarks. Intangibles such as know-how and trade secrets that are hard to register should be carefully protected by the owner as it is not easy to adopt legal application to secure the intellectual property.

When someone owns a portfolio of IP consisting of e.g. product and process technology for smart phones, the key question is how to keep the portfolio updated for the next generation of smart phones. A full understanding of changes in technologies and changes in business models are crucial.