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Many, many innovative companies invest resources in intellectual property management; not only in software tools and processes, but also in consultants to help them pick the right software tools and implement the right processes. In fact, IP consultants are becoming almost as common as IP lawyers are. In addition, while intellectual property management is of critical importance to all businesses hoping to compete efficiently in the new economy of global manufacturing, the most stunning IP failures occur before an idea even enters the IP management arena.

Every day businesses hemorrhage innovative ideas that could lead to useful patents, defensive publications, and trade secrets because the innovative ideas never reach the decision body. Every day even more businesses waste resources duplicating innovative initiatives because of failures in intra-company collaboration and failures in accessible aggregation and storage of innovative ideas. Moreover, every day businesses take needless (and often costly) infringement risks because of absent mechanisms for the legal safeguarding of innovation records and processes for prior art searching. Simply put, without a strong innovation management infrastructure, IP management systems and processes are often little more than a superficial glimpse of what they could and should be.

At the same time, successful innovation management results in better innovation work product, improved allocation of resources, higher product/service margins, increased licensing revenue, stability in litigation, market dominance, and higher client and shareholder value.

So, is it enough to merely develop powerful innovation? No. It’s necessary, but not enough. Without an effective innovation management infrastructure, not only will valuable innovation and opportunities be lost, but the time and resources invested to develop that innovation and position for opportunities will be lost as well.

An effective innovation management system typically requires the following components:

• Easy capture and storage of innovation records
• Automatic third-party legal authentication of innovation records
• Secure accessibility of innovation records
• Web based innovation collaboration
• Automated innovation reports for executives and managers (daily, weekly, monthly,
• quarterly, annually)
• Document workflow for important document types
• Interaction with other document systems
• Integrated and easy-to-use prior art searching
• Integrated and easy-to-use defensive publishing

This is the first in a series of articles on this blog about Best Practices For Successful Innovation Management.