Edison in the Boardroom Revisited: How Leading Companies Realize Value from Their Intellectual Property, Second Edition

Best Practices for Level Three: Capture Value

Level Three companies are now moving past IP as a risk-reduction tool to one in which IP is now a value generator. This shift in utilizing IP as both a legal asset and a business asset is significant. For the first time, it allows the business manager to include IP as a value-generating asset in his or her tool kit and opens up a variety of ways that IP can generate value. Level Three companies adopt a series of best practices, often including these four:

Best Practice 1: Define the value to be obtained from the company’s IP.

Best Practice 2: Develop an IP strategy to capture value.

Best Practice 3: Organize to capture value.

Best Practice 4: Develop metrics for IP reporting.

Best Practice 1: Define the Value to Be Obtained from the Company’s IP

Through the ICM Gathering we have learned that there are many different kinds of value that companies seek from their intellectual property. The specific kinds of value an individual company wants to obtain from its IP invariably differs from one company to the next.

The ICM Gathering companies have identified approximately 40 specific kinds of value that they actually obtain from their IP. The Gathering’s list is not exhaustive, but it is representative of what companies may want from their IP (see Figure 5.3).

Figure 5.3 Value Capture Options

For IP managers, the kind of value that their ...