نقش آی تی برای مدیریت مالکیت معنوی - تجزیه و تحلیل تجربی

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. Although information technology (IT) tools are a means to support the management of these portfolios, there is little insight in how firms actually make use of IT tools in this regard. Hence, this article analyzes how and for which processes firms use IT tools to support their IP management. Based on a data set of 106 IP intensive firms worldwide, we find that firms use at least one of three major IT tools for IP management: search tools, administrative tools, and evaluation tools. We also find that the use of IT for IP processes is decreasing along the IP value chain: firms use IT mainly in the early IP generation phase, e.g., for absorbing technological developments. The article concludes by outlining where and how IT tools can improve the management of IP.

The number of intellectual property (IP) right applications has been constantly growing over the last century. Since 1985, the annual patent filings worldwide have more than doubled; a similar trend can also be observed with trademarks and industrial designs [1]. This accumulation of intellectual property – and thus the growth of the firm's overall IP portfolio – poses several challenges on the effective management of IP. Firms with large IP portfolios are more than ever challenged to design strategies and to implement structures and processes to enable an efficient IP management. Towards this backdrop, dedicated IT tools which are capable of storing, structuring, and making IP information accessible may represent an important efficiency gain for the firm's IP management. Many firms with large IP portfolios such as IBM or Infineon have already established IT systems for managing their IP. However, there is a lack of insights with respect to where exactly IT tools are used in the management of IP, and how firms can use these tools to increase their IP management effectiveness. This article aims to provide answers to this question by presenting the results of a worldwide survey on IP management and IT support at the firm level. Towards the backdrop of managing IP, we define IT tools to span everything from specific IP based applications to general IP data bases. The paper is structured as follows. The next section gives an overview of literature on IP tools for IP management. Section 3 describes the research framework and the methods applied for the investigation and provides information on the analyzed sample. Section 4 depicts the findings on the use of IP software which are analyzed in Section 5. Finally, Section 6 summarizes the paper, presents some recommendations on how firms may boost their IP management, and gives a brief outlook for future research.

Firms are increasingly challenged by growing IP portfolios and have to adapt structures and processes to ensure efficient IP management. Towards this backdrop, IT may be a powerful tool to improve the effective management of IP. As the current user behavior shows, IT tools can significantly improve how IP data is managed and how information can be efficiently processed. The present paper provided insights into the use of IT tools in the entire IP management of firms by presenting the results of a worldwide survey. Three key findings can be derived from the results: • Three major categories of IT tools for IP management were identified: search tools, administrative tools, and evaluation tools. • The firms' use of IT tools decreases along the IP value chain: Firms most frequently use IT tools in the IP generation phase for searching activities. The IP evaluation and IP exploitation phases are less frequently supported through IT. • Patents are the form of IP rights which are supported most by IT tools. Based on the findings of this paper, several recommendation emerge. Besides patents, firms should also consider IT support for trademark and design management, e.g., by integrating trademark and industrial design data in the data base and search systems. This allows the firm to maintain a reliable overview of their entire IP portfolio and increases the efficiency of the overall IP management. Furthermore, evaluation and valuation activities have gained increasing importance for firms in recent years. By supporting these activities through IT tools, firms can improve the reliability of their evaluation results. Using an IT tool for the assessment of the IP portfolio or for single IP rights implies that the data used for the evaluation and the proceeding of the evaluation is documented within the system. Hence, the tool ensures to trace back the evaluation activity and increases the validity of the results. Also, with respect to the ongoing trend towards a more proactive IP management, firms should consider using IT tools to efficiently leverage their IP portfolios. A data base system, for example, can be used to structure the IP rights according to their current use and thus helps to identify patents for external commercialization. Moreover, from our analysis of the various activities along the IP value chain, it seems that IP information is not only important for the firm's patent department but also for R&D (e.g., new technology and state of the art searches) and marketing or business development functions (e.g., pricing considering the patent value, entering new markets through licensing). Hence, firms should consider that IT tools may facilitate the access to IP information which can then be used for improved strategy making. Finally, it is worth noting that we addressed IP intensive firms worldwide regardless of industry sector or firm size. Thus, the investigation of the impact of industry, firm size, and geographical effects would enhance our understanding of contingency factors important for IP management. Furthermore, in the case studies we focused on those firms that already have implemented well-structured IP management processes. To extend and complement our findings, longitudinal studies on how firms starting to establish IP processes use IT solutions for their IP management would provide important insights in the success factors of IT tool support. Lastly, due to the fact that much less attention has been paid to phases two (assess) and three (exploit) of the IP value chain, a promising further research avenue would be to investigate the impact of using IT tools in these phases on the overall effectiveness of the firms' IP management as well as to analyze the role of different user types of these IT tools.