End of Life for IP
As I continued thinking about the IP lifecycle, something occurred to me. Most companies put a lot of energy and money into creating and acquiring intellectual property. Not nearly as much time and effort goes into IP that is at the end of its life.
That's unfortunate since maintaining old IP costs money. It also represents a lost opportunity for one last revenue stream from an old standby. In a sense, selling IP is like the old garage sale adage "one person's junk is another's treasure." And like selling something at garage sale, you have to know you want to sell it, know how much you want to sell it for, and understand its value to someone else.
The hard part about IP divestiture is that so many constituents are involved, and there can be a lot of emotion involved. For the inventor, some of themselves is tied up in the IP. If their name is on the patent, they may not want to see another company, especially a competitor, using it. If the IP has been part of a very successful product, there may be an overinflated sense of its value.
Unlike a lot of IP decisions, the simple, gated workflow doesn't really apply. Decisions around end of life divestiture are more collaborative. They require that the constituents add their knowledge and express their views about the IP. Otherwise a true picture of the market, value, and continued internal usefulness of the IP will not emerge.
There are a number of well known techniques that can help drive this type of decision. Meetings are one way. Unfortunately, scheduling the number of constituents can be a challenge. People often don't have all the information they need when they come into the meeting leading to tabled decisions and more meetings.
Collaborative software, which allows participants to review and comment on the IP in question, is a good tool to use assuming it's secure and safe. A method of voting on IP also helps. By using standard survey methods, the attitudes of the constituents can be divined and better decisions made. Sometimes, thematic analysis of comments is needed since not all information is easily quantifiable. No matter what methods are used, typical top down decision making is not adequate.
Divestiture decisions are complex and require complex interactions between knowledgeable people. Since InnovationQ strives to be a complete IP lifecycle product, it has different collaboration and decision support features. IP.com continues to address the entirety of IP management and not just the legal aspects.
As someone who worries about how to leverage intellectual property, I see a lost opportunity. Management of the entire IP lifecycle is necessary to get the most leverage from these important assets. This includes managing the end of life.
