Community Forum – How do you create visibility into your IP?

A: How do you create visibility into your IP?

Our organization doesn’t do a good job tracking our patents in a way that is searchable and usable by our Technical and Commercial teams and we would like to learn about how your organization tackles this issue. In addition, we would like to know how your organization communicates patent information to the team. 

The results from this week’s survey are below.

Community Responses

1. How does your organization keep track of company patents in a way that is accessible and searchable by the Technical and Commercial teams?

• “Lists” in Questel OrbitInteractive “Portfolio Evaluation Matrix” shown in Patent Portfolio Assessment Processes section of this article
• attorney group manages through ipendgo
• We use a commercial software platform – Anaqua. There are others as well.
• Share Point site accessible to certain people – not everyone.
• We have a patent alert system that is shared monthly with the Technical Team. We have a searchable indexed database of our IP that is available to all company employees.
• By maintaining an internal database [Excel or similar] for all pending and active patents (parent and members) and associated with each unique internal matter (or docket) number by business/product line (for easy sorting).
• We load all patents into an internal database, along with a brief description. We also meet with Marketing annually to share status, prototypes and/or commercial applications for recent patents
• Currently, we don’t have that information available to Technical or Commercial teams. That information is provided upon request to the Legal team. The easiest way for these teams to collect this information is through external patent search engines like PatSnap, PatBase, and the like.
• Has a portal exclusively for patents with search functionality
• Internal IP Management system

2. Who is responsible for updating the patent data as needed? (title/level)

• Patent Committee headed by designated R&D Manager
• IP attorney
• Depending on the steps in the IP development process, different people are responsible. We have in house IP attorneys that oversee the overall process.
• Intellectual Property attorney.
• IP team
• We have a designated in house team that just manages the Patent Portfolio. We are under R&D and corporate technical information services.
• IP/Legal (paralegal); This task can be outsourced.
• Led by secretary to VP of Technology, with help from inventors and other technical staff.
• Administrative Assistants in the Legal department under the direction of the attorneys
• All our IP filing happens through a group dedicated to IPR. They know when the patent has been granted etc … so this gets reflected
• IP Owner and IP SAFe teams

3. How is the patent information communicated internally? (Newsletter, intranet, ELN, etc.)

• Patent “use” and “value” maps incorporated into technology and business strategic plans
• Intranet, email.
• New inventions are communicated via a monthly internal bulletin.
• Our Intranet and newsletter.
• No structured communication
• Patent Committee Meetings, Town Hall Meetings, landscape presentations
• We used to publish quarterly reports. Now, by request and when needed for making decisions/recommendations. PowerBI is one tool to pull whatever info needed from the database.
• Patents are recognized in weekly corporate newsletter, a congratulatory note to the inventors with copy to key technical, commercial and business leaders. An IP Council meets quarterly to discuss recent patents and other matters.
• Notifications about new filings is shared via email on a monthly basis.
• Talks by inventors.
• Newsletter

4. How do you think your internal process could be improved?

• See options on Identifying and Organizing Intellectual Assets in IRI best-practice resource
• Cross reference with products and sales revenue and profit.
• Better closed loop on what IP ends up being used and what value it brings.
• We significantly enhanced our process this past year by providing monetary recognition at various patent filing stages and annual recognition by senior leadership for inventors and “Inventor of the Year” award.
• Depending on what problem you are trying to solve. Hard to comment on how to improve the process since I do not see a problem identified. What benefits are you trying to realize by improving the internal communication around IP? I would define the outcome I’m looking for first and then see if IP internal communication is a barrier or a need to address it.
• Outreach is an ongoing activity.
• One way to improve is to keep all patent records in one secure place and avoid duplications. Also, assign responsibility and accountability to an individual (else, no one feels responsible and nothing gets done).
• Improve automation; more engagement outside of Technology and IP teams.
• The information could be provided in a distinct internal location (not our docketing system, but not the external patent search) that is made available to all employees.
• News letter is a good idea … to keep people aware what we have applied for and what have been granted.
• It is already mature

Have a response to add?  Email us!