Strategic intellectual
property management

Intellectual Property (IP) assets are an integral part of businesses, offering exclusivity and control to decide who can or cannot use their IP. IP assets when leveraged strategically can support business objectives, such as advancing competitive advantage, building ecosystems for novel technologies and maximising value creation.

Recent IfM research has revealed that some IP challenges hinder executives and organisations from making more effective business decisions. These challenges align around three key problems; lack of knowledge about IP basics; lack of knowledge about managing IP in licensing contracts, e.g. in open/collaborative innovation projects, and lack of strategic IP thinking. This short course is designed around these problems, aiming to build participants’ capabilities to approach IP strategically so it contributes to their overall businesses.

COURSE OVERVIEW

This interactive and engaging course design embeds different teaching methods enabling participants to develop the capabilities necessary to think strategically about IP. For example, during the course, participants will learn to implement a structured, step-by-step roadmapping-based process for formulating IP strategies. This tool, which has been tested and applied extensively by the IfM’s Innovation and Intellectual Property Management (IIPM) research lab, facilitates robust and systematic conversations about IP which otherwise would be difficult to cover. After the course, participants will be equipped to use the templates and process within their organisations to develop IP strategies.

Overall, the course will cover four main topics:

• An introduction to IP basics (refresher)

• IP in open (collaborative) innovation, contracts and licensing

• Strategic IP thinking

• An approach for developing an IP strategy

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

• People moving into roles requiring more strategic IP knowledge/management

• Top management and executives like chief technology officer, Head of IP, and Vice President of IP, particularly for start-ups and SMEs, executives and employees who do not have a dedicated IP team but need IP knowledge for strategising its business goals

• The course is not sector-specific but broadly caters well to the manufacturing sector

• The course is not only relevant to technology-based sectors, but also to other sectors with a high relevance of other IP typesr

UPCOMING COURSES

The course will help attendees understand how IP can be used to support the strategic business objectives of the organisation, such as advancing its competitive advantage, building ecosystems for novel technologies and maximising value creation. 

More, specifically, after attending this course, the attendees will be able to:

• Recognise the organisation’s IP assets and how to better leverage those IP assets for contributing to the overall business objectives
• Identify the IP risks and challenges faced by organisations in their IP ecosystem
• Enable participants to approach and use IP strategically while engaging with other stakeholders in the IP ecosystem, such as in open/collaborative innovation projects and licensing agreements.
• Create a proactive strategic approach to the organisation’s IP assets