Free Patent and Non-Patent Literature Database

Our Intellectual Property Library website is a free international database of patent and patent-related publications. Our goal is to encourage worldwide access to resources where innovators can explore and understand patents, technologies, and related art. The database contains an ever increasing array of international patents (as published by the authorities) as well as non-patent literature (including our own Prior Art Database). The site features such things as full text and English translation searching along with unique "more-like-this" capabilities.

Start by Searching the Library or visiting the Library's Resource Center.

Defensive Publishing

Our initial product, the Prior Art Database, was created to provide companies with a fast, effective, and centralized outlet for publishing and searching technical disclosures. In addition to electronic publication, the Prior Art Database collection is also published in print in our semi-monthly publication, The IP.com Journal, which is distributed to libraries and patent office worldwide.

Since its inception, the Prior Art Database has continued to grow, attracting many high profile clients such as IBM, General Electric, Motorola, Abbott Laboratories, and Eastman Kodak (to name a few). More importantly, it is searched and cited daily by patent examiners worldwide.

Learn more about our Prior Art Database.

Patent and Prior Art Research

Our Intellectual Property Search Service is a recognized leader in providing innovative companies with high quality patent searching and analysis. As veteran engineers and scientists with decades of industry and intellectual property experience, we have accumulated knowledge and employ a proven process for managing each search project that enables us to find the most relevant information and deliver timely, accurate, and concise results.

Learn more about our IP Search Service.

Personal Intellectual Property Protection

Our Creative Registry is a web-based registry that allows you to upload your documents and creative work for legal safeguarding. IP.com digitally fingerprints and date-stamps your work while placing it into a private archive for your personal access. IP.com then publishes the fingerprint and date into the public domain as a testament to the existence of your work. Your actual document is never exposed to anyone else, yet you have irrefutable proof of its content at the precise time it was safeguarded.

Learn more about the Creative Registry.

Innovation Repository and Workflow Software

Our InnovationQ software system provides solutions for managing the information, records, and processes associated with innovation and IP. InnovationQ is a software framework which delivers functions including sophisticated workflows, collaborative environments, and legally safeguarded document management. Utilizing this framework, we create configurable modules that provide integrated company-specific solutions. InnovationQ allows companies to improve their processes and derive new and additional value from their innovation and IP assets.

Learn more about InnovationQ.

Many corporations and organizations see the advantages that working with IP.com brings. We offer a variety of affiliate relations to help those companies more easily offer IP.com's services to in-house staff or as an added value to their clients.

Search Patents and Non-Patent Literature - IP.com

PATINEX offers insight into various facade of IP information and latest cutting edge developments of new tools and services for protecting, enforcing and exploiting a company's IP.

Conference host, Jung-Sik Koh, Commissioner, Korean Intellectual Property Office has welcomed us back again this year, and we're having very productive meetings here and enjoying the conference program.

This year, we're featuring IP.com's InnovationQ enterprise solution for organizations with significant portfolios of intellectual property to manage throughout the IP life-cycle.

Also of great interest at this conference is the Prior Art Database, the world's leading repository and registry of prior art.

The IP.com Prior Art Database is a unique database dedicated to the publication of technical disclosure documents. The IP.com Prior Art Database contains content that cannot be found anywhere else, and is an essential source of non-patent prior art data for intellectual property professionals, research and development (R&D) staff, corporate library staff, and individual inventors wishing to research prior art. The IP.com Prior Art Database is home to a wide array of technical disclosures from many Fortune 500 companies. While many publish anonymously to prevent competitive intelligence, you will also find many disclosures published with full authorship information from innovative companies such as IBM, Motorola, and Siemens. The IP.com Prior Art Database is also the exclusive location for new IBM-TDB (Technical Disclosure Bulletin) documents on the Web.

Recently, the Korean Intellectual Propery Office (KIPO) showed its leadership in fast-tracking green patent applications. 

On 1 October 2009, the Korean Patent Office (KIPO) launched its "super speed examination system" for green technology. The system is available for green technologies that minimise the discharge of pollutants, as well as those which have received funding or authentication for green growth. Applicants can apply for super speed examination by requesting a prior art search from one of three agencies authorised to conduct such searches on behalf of KIPO (the Korea Institute of Patent Information (KIPI), WIPS Co. Ltd. or IP Solution Co. Ltd.) and submitting the results of the search to KIPO.

Details of the application procedure for super speed examination and the documents required, etc. are posted on KIPO's website in the News section (article no. 688, published on 2 October 2009): http://www.kipo.go.kr

As Executive Vice President of IP.com and head of the company's Asia Pacific operations, I look forward to working with KIPO and other leading governmental agencies and business organizations to increase efficiencies in management of patent systems. Look for IP.com in the exhibition hall at PATINEX 2009, or contact me personally by email jkong@ip.com at your convenience, and see how we can help.

Since then, many academic institutions and laboratories have established some form of Technology Transfer Office, or TTO, as they're generally called, or have designated someone to manage the marketing and licensing of technology invented at the university. There's even a specialty publication dedicated to providing the latest information and best practices, titled Technology Transfer Tactics.

Technology Transfer Tactics is independent and unbiased. It is not affiliated with any organization, government agency, or foundation, or with any vendor or supplier. It is entirely funded by subscription revenue, and accepts no advertising.

For the current issue of the Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter, Cameron J. McCoy of the University of Oklahoma was interviewed about their Intellectual Property Management Office (IPMO), which we've also written about here on our corporate weblog, in connection with the implementation there of IP.com's InnovationQ workflow management software.

You can read the article here and, if you're interested in the latest tactics for technology transfer and licensing, you might want to subscribe to the newsletter of Technology Transfer Tactics.

In addition to the article about the University of Oklahoma's IPMO, the June 2009 Issue of Technology Transfer Tactics has interesting pieces with these headlines:

• TTOs take part in mad scramble for research dollars.
• Examine COI policies as big pharmas take bigger stake in early-stage research.
• Model for patent protection at Virginia Tech speeds up commercialization process, but challenges remain.
  
• TTO uses technology to target IP management/marketing gains.
• ‘Trolls’ have a thing or two to teach TTOs about patent protection.
• Florida start-ups to double with integrated statewide program.

 Click here to subscribe to the Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter

Each issue targets specific challenges in recognizing, protecting, and “marketing” potentially valuable research results, moving the discovery from the sheltered world of the laboratory to successful wide utilization, funding these challenges, and ensuring proper division of recognition and resultant monies. Our editors and writers report expert advice, successful case histories, legal perspectives, and other information that will enable hurdles to be surmounted efficiently and with prudent use of limited resources.

Here's a link to the current issue of Technology Transfer Tactics.

The Asia Pacific region, especially China, is undergoing massive changes in all aspects of economic might, including the cornerstone of Intellectual Property (IP) governance. China and the greater region are making great contributions to innovation and development of new technology to better humanity worldwide.

The nation’s innovation and intellectual property mandate has become the centerpiece of discussions at conferences and in boardrooms throughout China. The Chinese commitment to building infrastructure for innovation is as deep as its commitment to building roads, bridges, and skyscrapers. And to see the depth of that commitment, one needs only to spend a day in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, or any other Chinese city. At IP.com, we are more than pleased to be working with Chinese business and government leaders in building this infrastructure.

IP.com landed in China more than three years ago, and we have been on the ground there almost every day since. We have worked with law firms, universities, businesses, and the Chinese government, and we look forward to growing our Chinese presence and involvement. At the beginning of this year, we relocated our EVP, Asia Pacific, Johnson Kong, to China. This will be of great value not only to IP.com, but to me personally, as I will be spending 25% of 2009 in China…now I will have a place to call my own…or my home away from home.

On a personal note, not only am I placing an IP.com bet on China, but for the past two years I have been placing a family bet on China as well. Two years ago, I started learning Mandarin with my three daughters, and we continue with our Chinese studies together as a family activity almost every evening. So, we're pleased to express our best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year for our many friends throughout China.

Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái.

The IP.com Hong Kong Office is located within driving distance from Shenzhen, a ferry distance to Macau, and a short flight to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Shanghai and Beijing are also easily accessible from the IP.com Hong Kong office.

Johnson Kong, Executive Vice President and Head of Asia Pacific, has graciously taken on the personal challenge of relocating his family on our behalf. Mr. Kong is passionate and committed to our Chinese and Asia Pacific business growth initiatives.

IP.com is in the business of providing software and services for innovation management. In his current role, Mr. Kong assists clients in creating and implementing innovation management and intellectual property strategies to advance business goals. He has held several positions from sales & marketing to executive management with leading industries across Asia Pacific, and has become an expert in the creation and implementation of innovation management and intellectual property strategies. Mr. Kong has invented software and business methods associated with the analysis and management of intellectual property.

The new Asia Pacific office of IP.com is located at:

One Harbour View Street
1 IFC
33 Floor, Suite 16
Central
Hong Kong, SAR, China
T: 852-3960-6391
F: 852-2166-8999

For more information, call our US headquarters at 1-716-362-4562 or visit ip.com. You can read our company blog, Securing Innovation, where we write about Intellectual Property, not only in English but also in Chinese on matters of interest to our readers in China. You can read, in Chinese, some of the posts by Johnson Kong if you click on this link.

Robert L. Cantrell, one of the founding executives of IP.com, has returned to IP.com as a Senior Director of Business Development. His focus will be to develop straight-forward product solutions for companies that are looking for advanced tools to compete using their IP by means other than a traditional patent arms race.

Robert Cantrell is a professional strategist and the author of a recently-published book, Outpacing the Competition: Patent-Based Business Strategy. Robert has managed multiple solution sales and IP consulting engagements across a wide range of technology sectors that include communications, electronics, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, energy, and consumer goods fields. He is also a faculty member of Patent Resources Group (PRG), the leading provider of advanced patent education to the legal and business communities.

Robert's core expertise is in classical strategy, which he carried over from his military experience as in infantry officer with the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army.  His  first book, Understanding Sun Tzu on the Art of War, received critical acclaim and has been selected by the Department of Defense as text for the National War College in Washington DC.

We think you'll enjoy Robert Cantrell's writing here on IP.com's corporate blog, Securing Innovation, and you can follow his thoughts on Twitter @RobertLCantrell, as well. We're really looking forward to working closely with Robert again at IP.com.

Visitors to the Technology Transfer Tactics website can view the current patent portfolio of each of 143 prominent U.S. universities, and with one mouse-click can see the entire patent portfolio of each institution.

Also, from that web page, users can initiate a patent search at www.freepatentsonline.com, which is said to be the most visited site in the world for patent information.

The Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter provides in-depth guidance designed to streamline the commercialization process, as well as maximize the financial benefits of that process for universities and other research organizations.

“Technology Transfer Tactics is the pre-eminent periodical on amplifying and expediting the commercialization process for university IP,” said Erik Reeves, CEO of Patents Online, the company behind FreePatentsOnline. “We are very excited to be working with them to better expose the patent portfolios of all the key schools of higher learning across America. This will bring these universities more opportunities to increase licensing revenues.”

“Historically, the patent portfolios of companies and institutions have been only dimly visible,” said David Schwartz, CEO and Executive Editor of Technology Transfer Tactics. “Not only has FreePatentsOnline aggregated the largest audience in the world for patents and created unrivaled search capability, but they’re applying new ways of sorting and visualizing patent information to help accelerate the commercialization process.”

IP.com has a special interest in helping universities and research facilities manage their valuable patent portfolios. IP.com and the University of Oklahoma recently announced the launch of the InnovationQ Technology Transfer Workflow application for the University of Oklahoma's Intellectual Property Management Office. You can read more here about how OU is effectively managing its intellectual property assets with InnovationQ, and increasing patent licensing revenues.

Failing to follow sound IP management practices can leave directors and officers liable for breach of loyalty and open to claims of corporate waste...

One classic situation in which director and officer liabilities could arise: A corporation has over time accumulated a substantial IP portfolio whether patents, trademarks, trade secrets, or copyright, and has effectively lost track of what it has. It has not considered how best to maintain or strengthen the protections for the IP, let alone how best to exploit it. The problem is not necessarily in (just) failing to take certain steps to protect the IP or to exploit it, but in the failure to be sufficiently informed to competently consider alternatives so that the decision to take action or not can be defended as one that was given due consideration. This is where sound IP management can enhance internal controls and reduce regulatory and litigation risk.

 Read the article here on the new website for IP Law & Business.

Not since James Bond's boat chase scene in Moonraker have the Venetians had a chance to see such a display of intellectual property management. Tom Petrocelli will be at IPI-ConfEx 2009 in Venice from March 2nd to the 4th.

The conference is of direct interest to information managers and patent searchers and is particularly noted for its coverage of leading-edge ‘how-to’ technical discussions and reviews of information resources. Commercially-available products and services, free patent databases and other unique resources available worldwide for intellectual property research all form part of the program, as well as issues generally affecting the industry. Additional workshops provide optional training/learning opportunities and a chance to brush-up on the latest searching techniques.

This annual forum allows Information Professionals to:

* gather together each year to network with colleagues in other corporations and institutions;
* to update their knowledge on the latest thinking, techniques and tools available;
* to keep at the leading edge of their profession in the demanding patent information industries.

Patent Information Specialists, Information Managers and Scientific & Technical Search Experts working in corporations, academic or government research organisations, or other specialist scientific research environments will benefit from attending.

Tom Petrocelli, IP.com Inc.'s SVP of Enterprise Software, wants to see the latest IP gadgets and will be using Twitter to meetup with others at the conference who love intellectual property. If you want to catch up with Tom at IPI-Confex, subscribe to IP.com's Twitter stream @ipdotcom and follow our man in Venice @tompetrocelli and you'll get a chance to see the latest InnovationQ release. If you miss all the action in Venice, email or direct message Tom Petrocelli, and he will track you down when he gets back from his latest mission.

While 007 is adored by millions for his fictional feats of spydom, Bond would be nothing without his enduring and endearing gadget man, Q.

As the Quartermaster himself reminded Bond in the movie License to Kill, "Remember, if it hadn't been for Q Branch, you'd have been dead long ago."

Innovations for the Field

The character Q was based on a real-life engineer named Charles Fraser Smith. Smith worked for the British Government's Ministry of Supply and designed tools for agents during World War II. Today, Q's influence reverberates throughout government agencies in the United States and abroad.

But we're not here to blog about James Bond's Q, today.

We've got something more exciting to announce. This just came across the wires:

AMHERST, NY--(Marketwire - February 27, 2009) - IP.com announces a major release of their flagship intellectual property management software, InnovationQ. The new InnovationQ 3.2 features a new graphical user interface plus two new modules. In addition, several new features are incorporated into this release.

More complex IP management tasks require an interface that provides for quick and easy navigation while allowing power users shortcuts to key features. At the same time, organizations need to visually integrate applications such as InnovationQ into their overall environment. InnovationQ 3.2 accomplishes this with a brand new user interface and configuration features that allow customers to substantially customize visual elements of the application to appear like their other Intranet applications.

"InnovationQ 3.2 continues IP.com's commitment to comprehensive, flexible intellectual property management software," says Tom Petrocelli, SVP of Enterprise Software. "We are always adding new features that our customers need while focusing on those areas of IP management that are often underserved."

InnovationQ 3.2 also introduces two new modules -- the Patent Analysis System for Acquisitions and Divestiture and the Standards Management and Collaboration module.

When making decisions about whether to acquire or sell patents and other intellectual property, a number of stakeholders need to be consulted. Even more so, critical information must be gathered from these stakeholders in order to make considered decisions. The Patent Analysis System for Acquisitions and Divestitures facilitates this communication through the use of collaborative tools that allow stakeholders to discuss opportunities and provide critical information, facilitating decision making.

The Standards Management and Collaboration module assists companies who contribute intellectual property to standards bodies. It helps to track who in the company has contributed IP to a standard body through documents and meetings. InnovationQ 3.2 then identifies changes based on a number of factors that might effect those contributions.

About IP.com.

IP.com offers solutions to help companies effectively manage their intellectual property. Many of the world's most innovative companies use IP.com's services and software to support their IP strategies. With products ranging from prior art publishing and searching to management of intellectual property assets and processes, IP.com offers scaleable products to fit the needs of any organization.

I know, you want us to blog more about James Bond.

Yesterday, IP.com and the University of Oklahoma announced the launch of the InnovationQ Technology Transfer Workflow application for the University of Oklahoma's Intellectual Property Management Office. The system was designed to improve decision-making, secure IP records, and enhance the marketing of university intellectual property to prospective licensees.

"The chief goal was to improve the ability of the University of Oklahoma to identify, secure, and market the incredible research that occurs on their campuses," says Tom Petrocelli, IP.com's SVP for Enterprise Software. "Not only will the University of Oklahoma's IPMO be able to make better decisions about their ground-breaking research, they will be able to more effectively discover and attract licensees for those ideas."

InnovationQ helps companies to legally safeguard their intellectual property, derive more value from ideas, and speed the monetization of innovation. With streamlined processes, collaboration tools, and a secure system for managing innovation, InnovationQ effectively protects and enhances intellectual property from its conception.

"IP.com is designed to capture innovation at a very early stage and automate common but tedious IP related processes," says Colin FitzSimons, Associate VP for Technology Development and the Executive Director of the Intellectual Property Management Office at the University of Oklahoma.

InnovationQ offers the flexibility to integrate with existing software systems and corporate LDAP directories. This simplifies the process of assigning user and group roles within the system and accessing existing records, ultimately increasing compliance. Researchers and faculty are more likely to submit inventions -- as they can continually track the progress and status of each disclosure. It creates transparency between researchers and the IPMO.

"InnovationQ provides us with a suite of IP marketing tools," says Cameron McCoy, Director of Technology Marketing for the Intellectual Property Management Office at the University of Oklahoma. "We are collaborating with IP.com to create a unique innovation dashboard for technology managers to view reports, assess activities, and take action on their technologies and non-confidential summaries. It provides a platform for us to showcase our licensable content through a custom technology marketing portal -- providing OU with new commercialization opportunities."

InnovationQ delivers web-based, onsite intellectual property management solutions including invention disclosure review, patent analysis to assess acquisitions and divestitures, publication clearance, and R&D collaboration. IP.com configures these user modules to customer specifications yielding an application that is unique to customers.

In a series of posts here on our corporate blog, Securing Innovation, we've recently looked at how InnovationQ helps our clients manage important facets of their intellectual property assets in these four areas:

1. Invention Review Process
2. Trade Secret Management
3. Publication Clearance System
4. R&D Collaboration

And those articles are now available on this blog in Chinese, here, here, here, and here.

简介

创新机构常常在一些会议上以意见书、会议论文、公布和白皮书等形式发表它们的创新概念。这些发表能够提高它们的声望、支持销售和市场化进程，甚至能够产生更大的影响。虽然有很多有力的理由支持公司公布新的发明创新，公布有一个很严重的缺点——公布使该发明在全世界的范围内不能够再申请专利或者取得商业秘密保护的权利！为什么？因为发明创新一旦公布于众，它就公布于公共领域，就是说，您的发明和商业秘密应得的权利将减少或者消失。

什么是技术公布审查系统？

技术公布审查系统保证所有的文件在对外公开

发表之前，由合适的技术人员和法律专业人员审查。

这可以通过预先设定工作流程管理来实现。工作流

程自动地通知决策人在某个时间/步骤审查文件，保

证合适的人能够对文件及时地作出决策。

不应用公布审查系统的风险

• 丧失知识产权例如专利和商业秘密

• 失去潜在的授权收入

• 削弱竞争优势

• 难以定位产品

• 降低股东价值

简介

知识产权是资产之一。在全球化进程中，很多传统的企业资产已被量化，知识产权资产的价值也已被肯定。毫无疑问，企业缺少具有竞争力的知识产权资产将会失去它们的竞争优势。

为什么发明审查程序是有价值的？

创新概念能够成为有价值的企业资产。但是它们的最大价值常常不能够实现。一些有价值的创新概念被遗忘在某个硬盘或某个抽屉之中，或者被不合适的人员审批，或者是在错误的时间被审批。在这些过程中，时间在流逝。这些被遗忘的发明已经被竞争对手的新发明所超越。一个透彻的、便于采用的发明审查程序能够改变一项有价值的发明创新的命运。

恰当地应用发明审查程序，一项新发明能够成为知识产权资产新的组成部分：

• 发明和发明申请

• 商标和版权

• 可应用的商业秘密

• 防御性公布

• 可授权资产

• 同行评议论文

有效的发明审查程序产生的商业成果

• 从商业伙伴、客户和竞争对手取得的授权收入

• 更高的产品/服务利润

• 强大的知识产权资产

• 阻止竞争对手取得专利

• 强有力的可执行的商业秘密

• 市场占有率

• 有利的诉讼判决和调解

• 股东价值的增长

Johnson Kong, Executive Vice President and Head of Asia Pacific for IP.com, is in Korea with Tom Colson, our CEO, who addressed an international group of thought leaders gathering at PATINEX 2008.

IP.com CEO Tom Colson's presentation was on Advanced Enterprise Management and IP Strategies.

The keynote address for PATINEX 2008 was by KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh, who spoke on the Strategy of Patent Information Usage for Finding a New Market.

After this conference, Johnson Kong and Tom Colson are continuing on to Beijing and other centers in Asia that are regular stops for executives from IP.com.

Readers can follow at @ipdotcom on Twitter, where we're following other leaders in the technology space, like Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz. Here's how Jonathan Schwartz explains how Twitter helps him run Sun:

"Communication is a key part of leadership—as CEO, I need to engage the market, inside and outside Sun, with whatever technology affords me the greatest possible reach. Through blogs, online news, social networking sites, or Twitter, the Internet has fundamentally changed how we communicate with one another. Today, we have thousands of employees participating, engaging customers and developers across the world, 24 hours a day. And whether it's via a half-hour streaming video or a 140-character Tweet, we need to reach everyone in the forum and format they choose—not what we choose."

We're working on it, but it's still early days in the integration of Twitter feeds into this blog. However, if you add @ipdotcom to those you're following on Twitter now, you'll be sure to hear more about the latest innovations in intellectual property management and IP strategies. We look forward to reading your "tweets" and following you, too, just like we're following Jonathan Schwartz and Guy Kawasaki on Twitter.

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.

Corporate Counsel presents the 6th Annual General Counsel West Conference, to be held Nov. 6-7, 2008, in San Francisco. This year’s conference will focus on “Sustainability and Innovation.”

The ALM General Counsel Conference is designed to provide general counsel with access to their best and brightest peers and an understanding of what is working in the world's best legal departments. Attendees will gain insight into the innovative practices and processes in place to manage some of the most difficult corporate and legal issues of today, including:

• The credit crunch

• Extracting value from intellectual property

• Bet-the-company litigation

• Doing business in Asia

• White collar crime

• Electronic discovery

• Sustainability and corporate social responsibility

• Globalization

In a series of posts here on our corporate blog, Securing Innovation, we've recently looked at how InnovationQ helps our clients manage important facets of their intellectual property assets in these four areas:

1. Invention Review Process
2. Trade Secret Management
3. Publication Clearance System
4. R&D Collaboration

InnovationQ Features

The Workflow Engine - The Workflow Engine is software that implements a document workflow process. Workflow processes are standard paths that a document is passed along for review and approval. These can be configured to meet more specific needs. Convenient options to delegate your responsibility or seek consultation on a specific document are available.

A Document Repository - A software platform that stores and organizes documents. It includes the following features:

• Document storage and multi-categorization

• Full text search

• Document event tracking

• Document event alerts

• Reports of user and document activity

Collaborative Innovation - The Collaborative Innovation Module provides customers with the ability to send documents to other members of their team for comment and revision. It facilitates innovation through structured collaboration.

Roles-based Access Control – Administrators can develop different sets of permissions, or rules, which govern what a user (or groups of users) can do within the system.

Automated Invention Scanning/Scrubbing – Enables companies to rapidly align and evaluate technologies for consideration of further investment.

Integrated Prior Art Searching – Seamlessly search peripheral databases including IP.com’s Prior Art Database, U.S. patents and patent applications.

Legal Safeguarding – All documents loaded into the InnovationQ system are automatically date-stamped and digitally fingerprinted for verification. 

InnovationQ Benefits

• InnovationQ helps make processes more efficient and less error prone
• Offers a secure and legally defensible, document management environment
• Extremely easy to use – dramatically reducing training time and costs
• Quick to deploy – the web-based application requires no on-site hardware or software
• Future enhancements – constant focus on solving the problems of innovation management from IP.com
• InnovationQ allows you to mine your intellectual property for product ideas
• InnovationQ provides a solid ROI. Thorough IP asset protection at a cost that is relatively low compared to the value of the assets

As we rapidly move from paper records to electronic one, an R&D Collaboration system can be a powerful tool for scientists and engineers. Not only are documents instantly shared across departments and locations, with date-stamping, archiving, and categorization for easy retrieval. For the first time, R&D managers and legal staff can strategically oversee the innovation activity of their organization. With an R&D Collaboration system, managers and in-house counsel can get ahead of innovation and be proactive about innovation decisions.

Collaboration in the R&D environment

A strong R&D Collaboration system must enable:

• Storage of research documents with access controls
• Security of the documents so that sensitive information does not leak
• Search for documents for interesting ideas generated by others
• Sharing findings and papers with others, inside and outside the organization
• Reporting of all document and user activity and trends

All the while, documents must be authenticated so that they may be used later in patent applications and safeguarded as trade secrets. It is also important that access to critical documents be tightly controlled so as to maintain both the security and integrity of vital information.

To read more about dynamic tools for innovation management see this overview.

Innovative organizations often publish their innovative ideas at conferences, as position papers, journal articles, disclosures, and white papers. They publish to enhance their reputation, to support sales and marketing, perhaps even to change the world. And while these are important reasons for publishing innovative ideas, there is one serious drawback - the publication often destroys patent and trade secret rights throughout the world! Why? Because once something is published, it’s in the public domain, and once it’s in the public domain, your patent and trade secret rights are diminished or eliminated.

What is a Publication Clearance System?

A publication clearance system ensures that all documents have been reviewed and approved by the proper technical and legal personnel prior to outside publication. This is accomplished through the use of pre-configured workflows. Workflows automatically notify decision-makers to review a document at particular point in the process. This insures that the right people make decisions about the document in a timely fashion.

Risks of not having a Publication Clearance System

• Loss of valuable IP rights such as Patent and Trade Secret rights
• Potentially millions of dollars in lost licensing revenue
• Diminished competitive advantage
• Difficult product positioning
• Decreased shareholder value

To read more about dynamic tools for innovation management see this overview.