Intellectual Property (IP) is one of the most prized possessions of a business. The role of IP is to bring innovative products and services to the market. It also protects a business from other companies through copyrights, patents, and trademarks. This can be in the form of novel inventions, literary works, artistic works, technical innovations, or any other distinctive form of property possessing intellectual value for the business. Thus, the quantity of intellectual property, i.e., IP, that a business possesses determines its value. Hence, it is natural for any business to protect its IP and share it for its growth at the same time while maintaining the right of ownership on the part of the business. IP is an asset of the business, and protecting it determines the success and value of a business.
Intellectual property comes under the category of a company’s intangible asset, sometimes considered the most valuable. The main advantage of creating intellectual property for any business is that it allows having a competitive advantage over others. And the legal protection of the IP of any business gives exclusive rights to the particular business to benefit from its intangible assets. Through patents and copyrights, businesses get exclusive ownership of their innovations. Similarly, a business trademark creates a reputation among its consumers and enhances the business’s customer base. Hence, it is seen that businesses invest heavily in obtaining patents and trademarks, which affects the future profits of a business. It has been noted that investment has increased in research, marketing, and product development for intellectual property over the years.
IP Management Software: Goals
As companies invest heavily in protecting their intellectual property, there is something known as IP management software. With innovation and technology, and the growth of information technology, protecting and managing the intellectual property of a business has become a lot easier and more convenient. The IP management software secures your IP data, optimizes processes, and also protects your business’s critical assets. The main goals that intellectual property management software helps you achieve are –
- It optimizes workflows by streamlining and automating your processes related to portfolio management, saving you time for strategic decisions.
- Reducing risks by data integrity mechanisms and IP rules to protect your data, reducing risk and compliance to rules of global legislation; and finally,
- Collaborating effectively by connecting the right people at the right time to help secure your business.
- Protects innovative products and services
- Increase the visibility and value of the business in the market
- Access technical and business information and knowledge
IP Management Software: Features
One of the essential features of IP management software is patent analytics. IP management software is an important element in your patent mining process. Some of the features of IP management software are as follows.
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Intuitive Idea Submission Form – This is also known as the Invention Disclosure Form or IDF. It is simple, intuitive, and engaging. The Invention Disclosure Form (IDF) takes note of all the necessary details of the invention made. It also requires the innovator to mention the problem, the solution, and solutions to the existing problem. This form should always be kept as simple as possible.
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Customizable Idea Capture Form – This customization feature is the mark of good IP management software that allows you to customize the IDF according to your organization’s needs. The software should provide a form with the necessary fields that organizations commonly use. You should also be allowed to add fields as per your needs. This feature is what you should look for in good IP management software.
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Effective Collaboration – The IP management software should have a feature that allows users to make changes and also allows access to others by sharing them and tracking those changes made by others. Hence, many others can discuss and improvise an idea with the help of software through which others can make inputs. This will able you to experience real-time collaboration.
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Easiness of Thorough Evaluation – The IP management software should be able to provide a feature through which collaborators on a certain patent can exchange ideas by making them able to add comments.
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Role-Based Access – Role-based access is an essential feature in good IP management software. This feature is useful when you want the information of the patent to be available to certain roles of the business. This lets the software be accessed by certain roles only. In this way, any confidential information can only be accessed by key business individuals.
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End-to-end tracking – This feature in your IP management software is process-driven. It usually facilitates the tracking of the various IP management processes starting from the inception of the invention till the process of patenting and also beyond that. The processes that an efficient IP management software can track are:
- Capturing the data
- Evaluating the idea of the invention
- Drafting of a patent application
- Filing of a patent application
- Managing the patent portfolio
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Automatic Updates – A good IP management software should have an IP manager tool and IP manager download that can provide your business automatic updates to help you track the progress of the patent application. It should also notify of the rejections received. This can help you to have everything in one place.
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Cost Estimation – Your patenting decisions for your business can be eased down when you know the cost of patenting an invention and also the average allowance rate in the domain. Patent analytics is such an arena that helps you predict the cost and can help business owners manage their budgets accordingly. This is a crucial feature of IP management software.
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Tagging – This feature of tagging patents with certain keywords can help to filter out patents around a particular technology or business function. Through this function, any patent can be tracked down by just typing out a few keywords related to that patent.
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Case Analytics – This feature helps you get a general idea about how other patent applications fared in the domain. You can also get an idea about the law firm that is handling your patent. This gives you an estimate regarding the status of your patent and helps your business to strategize accordingly. This feature is used by legal tech, law and technology, and by legal tech in India.
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Detailed Examiner Analytics – This feature helps your law firm take the best approach concerning the examiner assigned to you for your patent. If your IP management software provides an examiner analytics feature, you can strategize accordingly for your patent prosecution.
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Dashboard – A good and efficient IP management software must provide a dashboard that helps you to have an overview of all the patents submitted, probable rejections, and your inventory. The dashboard feature can help you take decisions accordingly.
IP Management Software: Benefits
Implementing IP management software in legal tech can have various advantages that help secure your business.
- Ability to scale – You must always aim to expand your business’s intellectual property. An IP management software can help you scale your business and provide solutions for the same.
- Faster – The whole process of patenting becomes a lot faster when you use IP management software in the process of patenting. This saves time and makes it easier and more organized.
- Prioritized development – When you use IP management software to approve patents, the aim is to prioritize the growth and development of your business through the acquisition of patents.
- Technical support – IP management software acts as technical support to the business and legal tech in India.
Conclusion
IP management software helps your business to capture, evaluate, and helps you to patent and is also in the process after that. The use of IP management software is also helpful in strategic decision-making for your business.
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