Archive for 360 IA
Who’s Mining the Shop? The Need to Mine for Inventions in Companies, Universities
Posted by: | Comments“Who’s mining the shop?” This is a question that needs to be asked for every university, company, and organization capable of creating inventions. In my corporate and academic experience (am the former Corporate Patent Strategist at Kimberly-Clark Corp., and was a professor before that), numerous inventions never get the protection they deserve because nobody was there to coach the inventors, to recognize the potential for intellectual property, and to do the extra work required to develop a sound IP strategy for the work. Many inventors know almost nothing about intellectual property. Many don’t even recognize that what they have developed is an invention. This can be especially true in businesses when the invention is developed outside of a normal R&D department, such as a new business method or software tool. But even research scientists and professors may miss the patent potential of their work unless there is someone there to coach and guide them. Technology transfer offices are charged with this task in many universities, and legal departments or patent review boards have this duty in many companies, but both can miss huge opportunities unless there is someone who goes out to mine the organization for inventions. That involves reaching out to groups and individuals, educating them (often in presentations or group meetings) about intellectual property, being available for one-on-one discussions, asking questions, looking for signs of exciting developments, being an advocate and mentor, and constantly mining for IP gold.
One of the many exciting experiences I had at Kimberly-Clark came after recognizing that a particular remote mill had developed some clever solutions to a few problems they were facing. After further inquiries, I learned that the mill had some very bright engineers who were solving lots of problems in clever ways. I suggested that there may be some patent opportunities coming out of that mill, and arranged a trip to spend a couple days there giving presentations and doing interviews of team members to see what they might have. I found many exciting and potentially patentable advances from their work, and ended up working with them to generate nearly a dozen invention disclosures, several of which were filed as patents. This created a lot of excitement for the mill and helped them pay more attention to the IP potential of what they were doing.
As with that mill experience, part of successful mining involves helping people write up the initial invention disclosure. When people are very busy and writing disclosures doesn’t fit their job description, someone needs to be the assistant/mentor who basically writes it for them, taking away the pain of the IP process. It requires resources, but it can lead to substantial returns.
Look over your organization and consider what you could achieve by applying some additional resources to help generate IP through proactive mining. It’s something we can help you with at Innovationedge. Something I personally really enjoy doing. And I consider it an important step toward overcoming innovation fatigue in some organizations.
Who’s mining the shop? Great question.
Thinking Beyond Patents: Why You Need 360 IA (Holistic Intellectual Assets)
Posted by: | CommentsWhile our book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue, has a lot to say on innovation and managing innovation, we also have important sections on intellectual asset strategy. An entire chapter, for example, is dedicated to intellectual asset tools for dealing with disruptive innovation.
One of the key concepts we discuss is what we call “360 IA” (three-hundred and sixty degree intellectual assets). The 360 IA approach considers the full scope of intellectual asset tools for protecting your innovation. Patents are just a part of that, and even then, we challenge you to think beyond conventional process and product patents, also considering unconventional approaches that might fall within the realm of “business method patents.” Don’t overlook design patents, either. (See PatentlyO’s discussion of Google’s design patent for its homepage layout.) Make sure that your patents tell a story that lines up with your marketing story. Are the unique selling points of your concept also directly in the focus of your patent strategy? Moving beyond patents, there are creative things that can be done with other forms of intellectual assets such as trademarks. Creative trademark applicants have found protection not just for the appearance of the product per se, but for secondary aspects such as the characteristic water spout of Yamaha’s WaveRunner® personal water craft (U.S. Trademark 74321288).
Defensive publications are one of the most-effective and routinely neglected intellectual assets. I discuss them in the SharpIP.com post, “Are You Neglecting the Power of Defensive Publications?” If you are like most people and most corporations, the answer to that question is probably yes. Millions of dollars of headaches could frequently be avoided or greatly reduced by routinely publishing defensive disclosures aimed at creating prior art regarding minor improvements or seemingly obvious various to your patented technologies, thereby reducing the risk of others creating a picket fence around your own estate that limits your freedom. Potentially disruptive innovations or feared competitive acquisitions, mergers, or new product efforts can also have some of their sting removed through a creative defensive publication program. It’s not easy in typical corporate cultures, and specific actions must be taken to ensure that targeted disclosures are written by capable people and properly screened and tracked. The review phase is especially important, for once you pull the trigger and release the publication to the world, you can’t pull it back and change your mind, as you can with a patent during the months before it is published. My efforts to implement an aggressive defensive publication program at Kimberly-Clark Corporation were an important part of my work there, in spite of having had the title Corporate Patent Strategist. I actually spent a lot of my time working to advance publications and other non-patent forms of intellectual assets.
A 360 IA framework also demands attention to digital intellectual assets. This especially includes domain names, which many great companies tend to overlook, sometimes until it is too late. When you have some proposed names for a new product or service, go ahead and register the domain names ASAP, long before you settle on details and approach launch. They are cheap–unless you let someone else get them first. There are many free digital intellectual assets to consider as well, including YouTube channel names, Gmail accounts, Facebook names, Twitter accounts, Squidoo lenses, etc. Get these early. You don’t need to use them, but make sure you own them for your brands and emerging product concepts.
The great thing about the 360 IA approach is that it helps you proactively craft an intellectual asset estate with more purpose, more agility, and much lower cost than is possible by relying on patents alone. You can create an estate that enhances your marketing strategy. If you are looking to license or sell your technology and IA portfolio to someone else, you can greatly increase the value by presenting a holistic intellectual asset estate that considers many bases and is aligned with your marketing story. It really gives you a chance to shine and be more effective at lower cost.
Think beyond patents. Think 360 degree IA.
(Note:360 IA workshops and analysis are among the services Innovationedge offers.)