Patent Management

Patent management is important especially among corporations because it can build shareholder value if done effectively. Profit margins are increasingly under pressure in today's global economy. It is therefore important for shareholders and top management to realize that patent managements can bring additional revenues to companies. They will increasingly expect IP rights, in particular patent rights, to be managed as a business, turning, where possible, a traditionally expensive patent operation into a source of profits.

In addition, national governments and also the European Commission and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) are realizing that commercialization of innovations has become key for companies' economic success, if not survival. Consequently, these organizations are encouraging technology-based companies, including small and medium-sized companies, to pay more attention to patenting, proper patent management of portfolios, and the development of patent strategies.
It is for these reasons that patent management is becoming a core responsibility within technology-based companies. Despite these developments many companies have, however, not yet established effective patent management tools. A reason for this may be that many companies do not yet realize that patent management can be done like any other business assets.

Elements of effective Patent Management

In order to effectively do patent management, the tools must be kept as simple as possible. To manage patent assets properly, a company should look into the following elements:

* Patent strategy.
* Invention evaluation.
* Measurement of IP performance.
* A new IP culture.
* Alignment of strategies.
* Business endorsement.
Patent strategy

A patent strategy can be defined as a framework of decision-making processes and procedures that ensure that a company's patent activities support the company's business.
Invention evaluation

In patent management, it is important to identify a set of objective criteria that can be used to evaluate inventions at various stages, namely the review and first filing stage; the foreign filing stage; and the maintenance decision stage.
Measuring the performance of a company's patent assets
To determine whether a company's patent strategy matches its business and R&D strategies, use can be made of evaluation indices and indicators to identify over time possible areas of (potential) risk, particular trends and areas of necessary change in the patent portfolio.
Creating a new IP culture

To be successful in today's knowledge-based economy, patent professionals need to establish a new IP culture, one with more emphasis on value creation and extraction.
Alignment of strategies

To ensure that a company's patent strategy is aligned with its business and R&D strategies, the company's business vision should be known in patent management as well as the relevance of technology and patent rights in the marketplace.
Business endorsement

In patent management, all decisions regarding patent assets need to be informed business decisions, taken in close consultation with the business and R&D functions.