Scan your organisation for IP

For existing businesses the process generally starts with a high level scan of your entire operations to identify IP.  Every element of your business should be included in the scan because every part of your operation has the potential to yield intellectual output.  Start with the assumption that value has the potential to be created anywhere in your business, so no stone should be left unturned!  This process is to help you identify IP you may already know about, as well as to unlock potentially hidden value in IP that you perhaps were not aware existed in this form.

Scanning your business for IP is a relatively straight-forward process that will require time and the cooperation of your staff or external advisors that are involved in the day to day operation of your business.  Apart from identifying IP, some of it potentially valuable, this process will also identify the level of knowledge and appreciation you and your staff have of IP, likely informing your future efforts to raise awareness through education, for example.

Your review will also likely identify that your business does not have an adequate management system or process in place appropriate to your business’s scale or operations.  It follows, that by completing this process you and your staff may not be aware of the potentially additional or core role IP can play in your business, in terms of new development opportunities and growth.

Where do I start?

A scan and review of your IP requires completing a written IP auditing process, to systematically discover, identify, capture and review the information in relation to your IP position.  It generally involves the following activities:

• Identifying known IP rights, usually registrable, in the form of patents, trademarks, designs or circuit layout rights if you have them, but also automatic rights such as copyright, and those pieces of information you regard as confidential to your business;
• Surveying staff and IP originators to elicit more information about what they have generated in their work;
• Assess the degree of control you have over the IP by ascertaining ownership of the IP, names of the inventors, evidence of non-disclosure agreements, certificate of registrations, record of inventions etc. This may require you to review all contractual arrangements (employment, supplier and customer agreements) you have that may include IP provisions before the precise level of your control can be determined;
• Determine the extent to which your existing management processes and systems sufficiently fulfil the ongoing and future organisational business objectives as it relates to IP assets and rights.  This can involve survey questions prepared for data collection across your business areas as well as for management.

This process should establish the level of your organisation’s effectiveness across a number of areas core to IP management, as reflected in policy, management activities and/or behaviour.  It should reveal your activities and performance in the following elements of an overall IP management system:  IP identification; storage;,evaluation; protection; and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of new IP.

Links to subsections of this topic

Scan your organisation for IP
Introduce an IP Management Strategy
1. An organisation IP policy
2. Identifying and capturing IP
3. Storing IP
4. Evaluating IP
5. Protecting IP
6. Enforcing IP