IP management (IPM) is concerned with the ascertaining the company’s intangible assets, designing management processes to protect them and utilising the IP assets to help determine the competitive edge and to formulate the growth strategy for the organisation. Good and effective IP management is essential to the organisation’s ability to benefit its creative ideas and innovative solutions.

We offer diagnostic methodology to help your organisation in assessment of its IP portfolios’ and systems’ strengths and weaknesses. In this way, the organisation can identify areas where improvement can be attained through the devising and implementation of strategic and tactical growth options.

In tactical terms, this can be manifested through the securing the ownership and protection of IP created so as to enable to exploit it and extract commercial (or other) gains. Strategically, however, a multi-dimensional setup would be required to ensure the exploitation of the IP to its full potential.

We have devoted considerable thought to the necessities of SMEs, whose resources might be very limited, but for whom the need to manage and protect their IP is no less important. Their need to get support in their R&D endeavours, along with training and IP audit, intelligence and research, strategy, valuation, licensing, portfolio management, etc., might be even more acute. We have created a package geared especially towards SMEs, which takes into consideration their special situation.

Schematically, overall IP management can be seen as a three-tier programme whose respective layers are the strategic set-up, the deployment of management practices and the ensuing operations. In the first layer, the main tasks include the creating of organisational IPM leadership, devising IP strategic plan and audit and analyses of the IP realities and potentials. The second tier is devoted to the implementation of intellectual capital management system, the innovation management system and the continuous management of the organisation’s IP portfolio. Lastly, the third layer consists of management of external IP related issues and the utilisation and results of the IPM. As a complementary facet of the IPM, the organisation might wish to establish an ongoing training in IP related issues for its relevant staff.

It is important to know that there are various supporting programmes that assist SMEs (or other type of organisations) in developing of IPM capacities and capabilities. We can help you in locating such programmes and approaching them successfully.