Automatic Legal Authentication of Innovation
More and more, companies are migrating from paper to electronic records for the capture and storage of innovative ideas. Many people rarely even use paper anymore. Why should they? Since paper records are not searchable and easily lost, capturing invention records on paper is in many ways the equivalent of not capturing invention records at all.
The downside of capturing and storing invention records electronically, though, is that electronic documents can be altered, easily and undetectably. People can change dates or undetectably add content long after the creation of a document. Fraud can be committed and it could change the outcome of costly litigation. Sometimes the creation date of one or a few documents could mean the difference between a negative verdict in the millions of dollars, and a dismissal. In every case, electronic records will be needed to support both sides of a litigation matter. Opposing counsel know how easily electronic documents can be altered and will use that fact to diminish the credibility of witnesses and documents. Judges and juries also know how easily electronic records can be fraudulently altered and they often embrace conspiratorial theories. The ease with which someone can fraudulently alter electronic documents can seriously undermine the credibility of essential records that an organization may depend upon during trial.
With this in mind, it is of critical importance that an innovation management system legally safeguards all electronic records that might be needed downstream during trial or any other type of adversarial proceeding. The problem is that no one has yet invented a crystal ball that really works. Consequently, it is still impossible for any company to predict which of millions and millions of electronic records will be needed in the future during litigation against any one of any number of litigious competitors, customers, vendors, or complete strangers throughout the world.
Therefore, an innovation management system must legally safeguard all electronic records throughout the organization. It must essentially create a “document insurance” policy. Since we already know that a requirement for behavioral change will collapse an otherwise perfectly good system, the legal safeguarding must occur automatically. Third-party digital notarization by an industry-trusted source of all invention records is critical to effective innovation management. During trial or other adversarial proceedings, there are few things more powerful than testimony by objective, third-party witnesses.
This is the third in a series of articles on this blog about Best Practices For Successful Innovation Management. For more on this topic, see:
