During early 1990s, several European countries expressed strong dissatisfaction with what they deemed to be inadequate protection of intellectual property in many developing countries. The developed countries made the upgrading of intellectual property rights (IPRs) one of their highest priorities for the Uruguay Round of trade talks. Their efforts bore fruit in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), which was approved as part of the Final Act of the Uruguay Round. Thus, stressing the point on management of IP.
Purpose of IP management
Management of intellectual property is undoubtedly very important factor in managing the innovation process successfully. Besides research organizations like small and medium sized enterprises usually lack the interest, skills, capacity and incentives to manage intellectual property strategically and to maximize its impact on innovation for the betterment of the organization.
The effective management of intellectual property (IP) is an increasingly complex challenge in today’s global knowledge economy, especially for firms with large IP portfolios due to multiplicity in tasks. Even though hardness has been expressed by the business firms in large, to keep a check on their IP’s; it is important to note that there is a keen interest from all the leading business people to manage their own IP. It is quite sad to express that most of the leading firms after effectively acquiring IP rights with full swing fail to manage them.
Patent Management
It is to be noted that apart from all other MNC which don’t give much importance for maintaining the patents, companies like Infosys have a separate division for patent protection which also includes a in house counsel and technical analysts for Infosys who gives opining on protecting patent rights.
Copyright Management
Talking about copyright management is talking about depth of the sea. Which no one yet has measured accurately, among the other intellectual property management Copyright is considered as a most tricky due to its vast area of assessments. A single musical note is played several times in radios and television, now one cannot expect each and every radio/television station to get permission before telecasting the note. It is practically impossible.
To bride a gap between the copyright owner and the telecasting companies a virtual group should be formed for the effective functioning of the management of copyright. A collective responsibility must be imposed on such groups for effective functioning of the management of the copyright.
As already stated firms do not take up managing IP seriously as they give importance for audit books. They are not completely aware of the importance of the management of IP of the company.
Managing IP through online developed software
Although information technology (IT) tools are a means to support the management of these portfolios that has given growth to tremendous improvement for business professionals to keep a track of their Intellectual property, there is little insight in how firms actually make use of IT tools in this regard.
Managing IP through NGOs’
It is quite interesting to note that several NGOs’ around the world who work on collective management have come forward for generating ideas for the effective management of company’s IP. International federation of Actors (FIA) and International Federation of Music (FIM) in association with WIPO are also working on copyright management issues.
Note: The consequences of failing to do so can be disastrous but may only be felt at a later time or in other markets when you find that your Intellectual Property Rights has been infringed vigorously. The difficulty for business people lies in the fact that the time-sensitive aspects of intellectual property cannot be managed effectively by relying on intuition or resolving to see a lawyer when the need arises.