For small and budding businesses, the registration of IP assets such as a trademark has become a top priority. While the big players are continuously seeking ways to either gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace or generate more revenue for their business.
However, even though many businesses are aware of the value of intellectual property rights, a lot of them still struggle with developing a holistic IP strategy. By holistic, we mean an IP strategy that doesn’t just protect their IPRs but also position them to extract the most value out of their IP assets.
So today, we will be highlighting the three core elements of a revenue-generating IP strategy.
01. Strategic Protection
Traditionally, intellectual property law is designed to offer protection to innovative businesses by giving them exclusive rights to their creations and inventions.
However, the business world is moving at a breakneck pace. Technology has made business processes more sophisticated yet more vulnerable; hence, the need for a proactive approach to protecting IP.
The defensive publishing approach is one of the most functional and modern methods to adopt. This approach puts your assets in the prior art domain, thus, cementing your ownership of the disclosed IP assets.
02. Value Maximization
Traditionally, IP laws are designed to protect inventors through exclusivity.
However, the days are gone when IP assets merely sit on a firm’s balance sheet without contributing to the revenue flow of the company. That is for companies that deem them worthy of being listed. In fact, in many cases, business owners don’t record their IP assets on the balance sheet.
This issue of non-monetization of IP assets is mostly common among small business owners.
For well-established businesses, we have noticed that their problem has more to do with the lack of proactive monetization measures.
For instance, most businesses have budgets and teams dedicated to bringing in sales.
Contrastingly, the same businesses don’t have proactive strategies to pursue licensing and or commercialization strategies.
A revenue-generating IP strategy must incorporate measures designed to bring more value to the business through the various IP assets held by the company.
Furthermore, it should incorporate measures to tackle infringers as well as identify opportunities in new markets and cross-licensing.
03. Cost-efficiency
Our approach to strategic IP portfolio management is simple – increase value accruable from assets, reduce the cost of management.
While it is crucial to pursue protection and monetization opportunities proactively, it is equally essential to seek ways to reduce the cost of managing IP assets.
One common mistake among corporations and government organizations is the urge to protect everything, hence, neglecting the financial cost of managing a broad IP portfolio. By financial cost, we mean expenses such as management fees, prosecution fees, and of course, renewals. The financial burden becomes even more unnecessary when a portfolio is full of non-income producing IP assets.
Going back to our approach – “increase value, reduce cost.” It is advisable to keep IP assets that meet either one or both of the following requirements:
- Guarantee tangible financial returns
- Provide a competitive edge against competitors
So these are what we call the three core elements of a revenue-generating IP strategy.
If you have some questions about strategic IP portfolio management, feel free to Contact Us
