Posted by Lecorpio Marketing on Sat, Jun 26, 2010
Patent departments are like no other. There are few business functions inside organizations that require the same level of globalized thinking, vendor management and client service.
Patent departments are also under constant pressure to deliver all this and more with limited budgets. Such requirements make their operations and delivery a bit unique and not so easy to understand.
IT departments often underestimate this complexity and suggest tools and products that are overly simplistic and place too much emphasis in data or document instead of process efficiencies. Most of these implementation fail to deliver.
Unfortunately, for decades these requirements were ignored by patent docketing software vendors. Most such vendors made a bulk of their revenues from annuity payment services and hence did not have any incentive to innovate or go up the value chain.
In the last few years, Lecorpio and some other vendors have championed the cause of IP management by providing process driven applications helping patent departments service their clients better and manage their service providers more effectively. Already, we are seeing increased momentum for change and successes to validate the need and value of an enterprise wide IP management system.
Here are some key peculiarities of patent management software deployment that the IT departments in mid-large size organizations may find useful-
Complex:
Indeed the patent business is complex. The complexity is stemmed from the need for an intimate knowledge of the legal and cultural aspects of each country in order to protect patents successfully and make them available to products or services that are on the market in various countries around the world. Patent management system must provide functionality to address these needs.
Unique:
Under budget pressures, most patent departments get creative and try to maximize their resources to the fullest extent. This makes their process unique from other organizations. While docketing function may be the same in most departments; Invention Disclosure Management, Open Source Management, Inventor Awards, International Filings, Patent Investigations and several other functions differ in companies. A cookie cutter approach does not work. The patent management system must be able to adapt to each patent department's unique processes.
Change Management:
Most departments have not been involved in any enterprise scale deployment and lack adequate IT support, the patent management software project often go though 20-30% requirements change after the deployment. This requires that the system of choice is able to handle these changes without issues. The cost of managing these change can spiral out of control if the system is inflexible and requires code changes for such requests.
High Expectations:
The patent departments place high expectations on IP software providers. In general, there is a lack of tolerance for errors which means you should check the references provided by patent management vendors throughly. Besides the product, ask them about issues faced during implementation, change management and support after "go live".
Several progressive IP departments have realized successes in automating manual operations and made their teams more effective by using Lecorpio's patent management system. Lecorpio patent management provides comprehensive features and functionality to manage invention disclosures, patents, docketing, licensing, conflicts, and budgeting. The applications are flexible and can easily adapt to each customer's unique requirements.
Learn more about Lecorpio's IP Asset Management solution or IP Management Software-related products and more.
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Posted by Lecorpio Marketing on Sun, Jun 13, 2010
A merger or acquisition isn't a success until integration is achieved. People, processes and systems need to be integrated into a cohesive entity. Each of these aspects has its own areas of complexity and requires different managerial skills.
From an IP Management Software standpoint, the diversity of the IP docketing systems and processes that existed in different entities now requires alignment. And the problem is compounded by the need for fast implementation.
Such an IP management software integration effort must essentially aim at integrating or consolidating intellectual asset management processes, eliminating duplicate IP docketing software systems, standardizing and conversing business-critical IP asset data and developing an overall implementation roadmap.
Post merger and acquisition, the Top 5 success factors for a successful IP management system migration include:
Get your vision down on paper
IP management integration is a multifaceted, multivariate problem requiring a solution that can analyze, evaluate, compare, and integrate the IP asset data from each of the merging organizations' core patent and trademark docketing management systems.
Establish key metrics to monitor your progress.
At a minimum, the plan must include:
- User Impact Analysis (including inventors, patent committee members, paralegals, internal and external patent counsels.
- Business process impact and consolidation of best practices.
- Risk assessment (including delays in recordation etc.)
- Data uniformity and data migration.
- Custom developments on the software for IP Management.
- Legacy docketing systems retirement.
- Testing and quality assurance
- Conversion and downtime impact
- Long-term support
Leverage Competencies
Too many patent departments have a very narrow focus during the post merger process, they focus too much on bibliographic and docketing data. There is no denying that docketing data is important, however don't let that drive the integration process. Post merger, both departments need to demonstrate features and capabilities provided by their systems and look for opportunities. The "not invented here" thinking should be banned. Just because an idea is originated from outside the acquiring organization does not make it redundant. The focus should be on leveraging the competencies of both companies.
Get Your Timing Right
After the merger, the intellectual property rights of the acquired company need to be transferred into the name of the new owner in each jurisdiction where such rights exist. Timely recordal of a change of ownership is critical to protect the ongoing validity and enforcement of intellectual property rights. This can drive the need
for fast migration. If the acquired entity have significant IP assets, break the data in parts and import it in phases. Here is the sequence that can help you get there:
Start with bibliographic data. Follow this with docketing, then IP licenses, IP assertions and other transactions, and finally invention disclosures.
It is a good idea to validate your plan with the IT department. For example, before you plan on transferring the data for invention disclosures, IT must allow employees of acquired entity an ability to log into the new system to view their past invention disclosures and submit new ideas.
Prepare for Data Issues
It is not uncommon to find companies use a broad mix of hardware, operating systems and software with patchwork maintenance. Over time, a company's IP management systems for invention disclosures, patent and trademark docketing, licensing and other related systems undergo incremental changes. This patchwork approach introduces data migration issues. Many times, inventor names are not matched against HR data. The products, technology areas and client groups need to be revised for the imported data. This requires a better understanding of data schema and tools for bulk update. It is better to do these changes prior to migrating the data into the final system.
Ongoing Training
During transition, it is important to have training materials ready and upto date. Clear and constant communication of vision, goals, and objectives can keep inventors, paralegals, patent committee members, In-house counsels and outside law firms on the same page and and help everyone to stay focused. It is important that all stakeholders are fully engaged and that training programs developed during integration planning are institutionalized.
Lecorpio IP management services have helped several IP departments consolidate multiple IP management systems into one by defining a common architecture for deploying
and enhancing the existing data from both organizations. Lecorpio provides services to cleanse, consolidate and standardize the data against public data sources for error-free operation of IP management system and ensure continuity and data integrity.
Learn more about Lecorpio's IP Asset Management solution or IP Management Software-related products and more.
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Posted by Lecorpio Marketing on Sun, May 23, 2010
Shortened product design and life cycles, the increased expense and uncertainty of R&D and the frequent need for non-resident technical skills or access to new markets, demand a variety of complex strategic arrangements with domestic and foreign entities. Now more than ever, progressive IP departments assert and/or license their IP to further their business interests, and they acquire rights to adversely owned technology and IP when its to their advantage.
Intellectual Property (IP) Transactions Management Software must provides tools and features that empower IP departments to take a long-term view of their IP portfolio and to seek and obtain protection for the core inventions that form the basis of their businesses, whether or not they intend to do anything with those protections in the near term.
Here are the top five features of a good Intellectual Property (IP) Transactions Management Software:-
Collaboration
IP Transactions Management software must provide a collaborative environment to all stakeholders including the IP department, General Counsel, Business Unit heads, CTO, lab heads, internal licensing teams and enable them to work together on the strategic and financial objectives to be achieved with the IP portfolio. The collaborative environment must support document sharing, feedback collection, and provide tools for strategizing, brainstorming and decision making.
Portfolio Management
Inadequate due diligence can result in overlooked and incorrectly valued IP and can leave undiscovered disputes over ownership or provenance of IP that is of critical importance to a transaction. IP Transactions Management must provide comprehensive support for IP portfolio management including ability to store third party profiles, real-time access to your patents, trademarks and other assets, third party patent and trademark repository etc. Further, it should allow IP managers to tag each asset by asset quality, geographic scope, legal strength, technical risks and cost burdens and help them in augmentation, prioritization and disposition of their IP assets. The result is a more focused portfolio to meet business needs and increase shareholder value.
Workflows
The IP Transactions Management software must provide robust workflows for IP In-licensing and Out-licensing, Patent purchase/sell, third party tracking, IP assertions and disputes management, IP research analysis and acquisition, defensive analysis decision and handling, litigation support work, IP investment research, IP competitive research, IP freedom to operate and IP landscape research, IP divestiture handling as well as enable tracking for IP standards participation.
Data Integration
IP Transactions Management software must have data integration capabilities to seamless integrate your internal data with public data from all major patent authorities including bibliographic, citations, legal status and patent family collections in one place. This will save you a lot of time in manual searching, storage and analysis.
Analytics
IP Transactions Management Software must provide tools to thoroughly understand the patent and trademark portfolio, by technology area, products or other metrics such as relevant markets, and combine that analysis with the relative positions and strategies of other market players within same technologies or markets.
Lecorpio Intellectual Property (IP) Transactions Management provides a centralized repository for different types of matters including disputes, assertions, investigations, freedom to operate, invalidation and product clearance analysis and generate reliable results for achieving business objectives. The robust workflow tools provides for the implementation of measures to ensure protection and commercial exploitation of valuable assets and investments made in research and development.
Learn more about Lecorpio's IP Asset Management solution or IP Management Software-related products and more.
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Posted by Lecorpio Marketing on Sat, May 08, 2010
In the last 2-3 years, several progressive IP departments have adopted a documented, systematic, and timely process for the analysis, protection, and commercialization of their intellectual property. Here are the top 5 features of Invention Disclosure Management software that can help IP departments reduce cycle time to process new ideas, automate manual operations, structure processes and improve inventor satisfaction.
Electronic Submission
The purpose of an invention disclosure is to capture the minimum information sufficient to allow the company to evaluate investing in an idea. The electronic submission process ensures that the IP department is getting consistent disclosures, in the same format, capturing the same type of information. It is important to make the submission process as simple as possible. An inventor should be able to log in and complete the form online in a few steps.
Collaboration and Communication
During the invention disclosure review process, a number of questions typically go back and forth between patent counsels, paralegals, administrative staff, subject matter experts, patent committee and law firms. Without centralized collaboration system, these conversations usually take place via emails with no tracking mechanism.
Invention Disclosure Management Software must provide a platform for seamless collaboration and communication between different participants in the process while tracking each and every communication within a secure environment.
Rating and Analysis
The software must be able to assign subject matter experts and patent committee members automatically and provide them an easy to use interface to review the disclosures prior to the meeting.
Further, the patent committee members should be able to use an objective criteria for evaluating invention disclosures on the basis of technical merit, relevance to company objectives, relationship to the existing portfolio, commercial viability etc.
Review and Approval
One key benefit from a structured invention disclosure process is the ability to view and defer unnecessary costs by vetting ideas earlier in the development cycle.
After the initial analysis and recommendation by patent committee members, the invention disclosure management system should submit the disclosure to patent counsel for legal review and a final decision on filing. Invention disclosures not filed for patent protection and retained as trade secrets should also be documented.
Analytics and Reporting
Invention Disclosure Management Software must provide sophisticated searching and reporting tools as well as real-time analytical insight into the productivity and performance of the entire process to improve decision-making. This analysis would help in revealing the hidden factors driving and inhibiting innovation planning and performance.
Lecorpio invention disclosure management is the only application that fully adapts to the unique needs of each organization. Today, some of the best known companies are using Lecorpio to bring together corporate legal departments, inventors and other stake holders fully collaborating as a single collective entity to manage innovations.
Learn more about Lecorpio's IP Asset Management solution or IP Management Software-related products and more.
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Posted by Jerry Lamigo on Mon, Apr 12, 2010
Because most progressive IP departments have unique ways of organizing and executing IP Strategy-an IP management software that works for one company isn't necessarily going to work for the company down the block.
In order to deliver full value to the business, intellectual property management software must be adaptable to the needs of each department. When considering adaptability in IP management software, it is important to understand the difference between configuration and customization.The crux of the difference is complexity.
Configuration uses the inherent flexibility of the IP management software to add fields, change field names, modify drop-down lists, or change workflows. On the other hand, customization involves code changes in the base application to create functionality that is not currently available. In other words, If something is configurable, it means the existing software can be worked (via the standard user interface) to reflect the change. If it requires customization it means software code has to be changed (added or moved around) so the software can do what you want it to. Guess which one costs more?
Customization can be very costly and complicate future upgrades to the IP management software because the code changes may not easily migrate to the new version. Wherever possible, IP departments should avoid customization by using configuration to meet their goals.
During a typical demo, the vendor is going to focus your attention on the cool, "shiny" aspects of their system. It is important that you bring up this topic during the demo, because this issue alone can determine the possible outcome of your project.
Here is a list of top 3 questions to help you understand how should the IP management software be implemented to meet your requirements.
1. Is there coding involved for any changes to the application?
If the answer is yes, get yourself ready for heavy implementation costs (despite whatever the vendor initially quotes).
Coding means that some engineers will need to write or modify the code that is often unique to you. This means 2 things. First, it means money. Engineers make a lot of it. So more costs upfront. Second, customization add delays to the implementation, for code to be written and thoroughly tested. Even with careful project management, there is the possibility of the project's slipping due to scope creep and other factors, and ultimately missing its deadline. If quality assurance is undercut in order for the project to come in on time, the result can be buggy software.
2. Who can perform the configuration/customization?
The best systems in the market are the ones that allow you, the customer, to perform configuration changes on your own. The skill level required to make these changes should be basic and the IP team including docketing clerks, administrators, patent counsels should be able to make most of the basic changes.
3. How will these changes affect future vendor upgrades?
That means if the customers add customized fields, reports and workflows, etc., can they still receive software updates every 4-6 months? That is, will the software updates overwrite their customizations?
Configuration do not affect future upgrades, Customization does. Customization prevent you from applying future upgrades without shelling out even more money to the vendor to reapply your customizations.
In short, customization adds cost, for the initial development, implementation as well as for long-term support. Configuration is economical in terms of both time and money and help you in future growth and better handling of change in future business requirements.
Make sure you get straight information from the vendor regarding configuration vs. customization. Your initial cost of purchase may seem very attractive, but the long-term total cost of ownership may end up being extremely high.
Lecorpio uniquely provides the most configurable Intellectual Property Management Software that adapts to the needs of each IP department. Because there is no coding required to make any change, Lecorpio customers are able to configure the logic of their applications with basic skills. This means the configuration happens more quickly and without the need to involve programmers or third-party consultants. The changes made by customers are carried over seamlessly in each release.
Learn about Lecorpio's IP Management Software related products and more.
Posted by Jerry Lamigo on Mon, Apr 05, 2010
The down economy has s
hifted the balance of power from law firms to corporate legal departments. There is a heightened demand for technology solutions that provide them with the knowledge, transparency and real-time technology to take control of their business operations.
Specifically for intellectual property (IP) operations, a big chunk of IP spending goes to pay the fees of outside counsel. This makes it critical for IP departments to design and implement metrics, systems and processes necessary to reduce costs and improve efficiencies.
The costs attributed to IP related operations vary significantly from other legal functions. Typically, IP management includes more matters spread across geographically distributed service providers, more invoices containing more billing line items. Given high volumes, ensuring the accuracy of invoice amounts agsinst performed tasks can be a significant challenge.
Here are the top 5 features of IP spend management software that can help in improving forecasting, managing risks and reducing legal costs.
Budgeting
IP spend management should enable IP departments to define multiple types of budgets including but not limited to task based (drafting, illustration, filing, office actions etc.), firm based, complexity based or calendar based (fiscal year/quarter/month).
Invoice Intake
IP spend management should streamline the time-consuming, labor intensive processes of invoice receipt. It should be able to handle invoices delivered in multiple formats (LEDES compliant, Non Compliant, Paper Based etc.). It should capture 100% of IP spending by converting detailed invoice entries from different formats into a common electronic format.
Review
IP Spend Management should provide workflow tools to automate invoicing review and approval process by routing the invoice to the appropriate reviewers. It should capture invoice adjustments and comments at each stage of approval and provide the invoice approval status at a glance. Additionally, it should deliver data for approved invoices to the company's AP system.
Audit
IP Spend Management should track invoices against the estimates provided by law firms at different stages of the IP lifecycle and generate audit alerts if spending exceeds the budget amount. By validating invoices against IP department submission guidelines, the department can reduce costs, make better decisions and improve collaboration with outside counsel.
Analysis
IP Spend Management should provide sophisticated tools to analyze overall spend by firm, by matter, by attorney, by country, by task, by technology area etc. and provide real time statistics on budget vs. actual expenditures to enable better forecasting.
Lecorpio IP spend management provides automated workflow and data analysis to enable progressive IP departments better understand, plan, control and reduce their overall spend.
Learn more about Lecorpio's IP Spend Management solution or other IP Management Software-related products and more.
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Posted by Jerry Lamigo on Mon, Mar 29, 2010
For many IP departments, business justification for an intellectual property management software remains a challenge. A convincing business case driven by strong ROI (Return On Investment) metrics can serve as a tool to overcome internal resistance to change. It can also give senior management a positive vision for organizational transformation.
It is important to understand that ROI comes from the process improvements supported by IP management software-not from IP management software alone.
The good news is that a return on investment on intellectual property docketing software is not dependent on a broad, enterprise-wide implementation. Many IP management projects begin with a single application and the benefits can be substantial. If you take a phased approach to intellectual asset management, calculating ROI on this initial deployment is even more important as it will help validate the technology and its benefits. It can provide you with evidence to scale more broadly.
Here are the five ROI metrics that can help you in preparing your business case for intellectual property management software implementation:
1) Efficiency
Time is money in today's competitive climate. It is well known that intellectual property management software will make your processes more efficient. It eliminates data re-entry for invention disclosures, committee reviews, patent bibliographic, docketing, and invoicing. It reduces the time for your team to prepare and conduct patent committee meetings or portfolio reviews.
When calculating metrics for efficiency, look at the average time that your team is spending on current paper based processes. Include the valuable time that your staff is spending on preparing agenda print-outs, packages for the team. What cost your IP department incur when there is a delay in the process? If your goal is to improve efficiency and productivity consider including the following estimates in your ROI analysis:
- The administration staff to be redeployed to revenue generating work through the elimination of manual data entry, document production, and processing.
- The percentage of productivity improvement to be realized through shorter transaction processing times, faster approval cycles, more reliable routing, reduction in manual intervention, and reduced data entry volume and time.
- The ability to support business growth without increasing headcount due to additional staff workload capacity.
2) Service
One of the most important goals of an IP department is to service their inventors. It is important for any IP department to ensure that the inventor community is satisfied with their services and wait times. Could efficiencies in this area allow you to improve inventor satisfaction? If you are seeking to leverage intellectual property management software to improve inventor service and satisfaction, add the following estimates to your ROI model:
- The reduction in inventor wait times in actual terms and as a percentage improvement.
- The percentage improvement in inventor satisfaction levels through simpler, faster, and better methods for invention disclosure review and approvals.
3) Compliance
The infrastructure shortcomings exist in both corporate legal departments as well as in law firms. The existing "point" based, incompatible and non-integrated IP docketing systems produce their own docketing data, deadline reminders, and keep their own duplicate set of records. For an IP department using several law firms, keeping these systems synchronized and files up-to-date can become a significant challenge and can contribute to the inherent compliance risks of manual processes.
Intellectual property management software reduces of manual data entry. Missing, misfiled and incomplete documentation results in non-compliance fines, penalties or unfavorable settlements. For ROI related to compliance, consider the following:
- The auditing costs, time saved, and fines avoided through the availability of comprehensive audit trails and transaction evidence.
- The legal cost savings and avoided settlement costs to be realized through the presentation of irrefutable transaction evidence in court or to avoid going to court in the first place.
4) Communication
According to a survey of US law departments conducted by PWC, most corporate IP departments spend more than half of their budgets on outside counsel. Some spend as much as 90% or more. However, very few departments have systems and processes in place to monitor the activities of external legal service providers.
A particular firm may have especially slow turnaround, a pattern of seeking extensions of time, or unusually high charges, which may escape notice of the in-house counsel. Without means of identifying process bottlenecks, performance issues and cost concerns, managing the process becomes unwieldy and ineffective.
A framework that allows for seamless collaboration between different participants in the IP creation, protection, maintenance, and exploitation processes can help significantly into your organization's IP competitiveness. Not only does it provide visibility across all intellectual assets, it allows for better selection of firms and better management of internal resources. To measure ROI associated with communication, consider:
- Eliminating duplicate invoices and duplicate charges across different invoices, and ensuring compliance with billing guidelines.
- The savings you can achieve by keeping tabs on their performance and seamless transfer of matters to another firm with better turnaround time.
5) Cost Savings
Increasing accountability, workloads, pressure to manage budgets, and "doing more with less" is a common mandate for IP departments. However, a single patent family may have associated fees that can be upwards of US$400,000 over the effective lifetime of a patent, not to mention the mandatory up-front overhead for patent application preparation work by expert legal counsel. The IP management software provides you visibility into your budget allocation and usage. This can be used to stop bleeding at any point in the IP management lifecyle when it stops making sense.
The ROI metrics associated with cost savings include
- Using online collaboration tools with the right team to implement new and better patent filing strategies.
- Getting the best resources wherever available for controlling patent preparation and prosecution costs.
Several progressive legal departments have realized better and more predicable processes, improved productivity, and better control over law firms with Lecorpio's IP management software. Lecorpio IP Asset management solution includes invention disclosure management, patent management (including docketing), trademark management, domain management, open source management, licensing management, contract management, standards management, IP transactions management, and spend management.
Learn more about Lecorpio's IP Asset Management solution or IP Management Software-related products and more.
Posted by Jerry Lamigo on Tue, Mar 23, 2010
When you look at patterns of Intellectual Property (IP) management software implementations across different industries, you will notice that major benefits don't come out-of-the-box. To reap these benefits, IP departments must be patient and redesign their business process to take advantage of the IP management system's capabilities and retrain their users in new processes. Even for most progressive IP departments that perform their tasks well, achieving many of IP management software's benefits take time.
Key users such as inventors, I/H counsels, and paralegals must become familiar with how to perform their daily tasks in the new software for IP management, learn about system's new capabilities, and overcome the natural resistance to change. The departments must pay more attention to reports and analytics that take advantage of new, more robust data available in software for IP management and make them readily available for users to help them understand the benefits.
There are five major stages of benefits derived from a typical intellectual asset management software implementation. These benefits start at the beginning of the project, and usually take 1-2 years to realize their full potential. Here are the characteristics of each stage:
Stage 1: Requirement Analysis
Typically, this is the first step of project implementation. In most companies, this is the first time they are able to visually see their "As Is" IP processes and define "To Be" IP process flows. Given that most IP departments did not have enterprise-wide deployments where people outside of their department had access to their docketing data, the importance of this stage should not be underestimated.
Engineers and R&D teams are important contributors to data input in the new enterprise-wide system for IP management, therefore any new invention disclosure management or patent management processes should take their acceptance into account.
Stage 2: Go Live
Bruce Lee said, "If you want to learn to swim jump into the water. On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you." Using this analogy, key benefits of intellectual asset management software start at "go live". Since most IP departments now have a true portal for collaboration for the first time, user learning curves and business processes are severely challenged at this stage. Most benefits are tactical and accrue to IP departments with broken or limited legacy docketing systems.
Stage 3: Incremental Improvements
At this stage, key users learn to perform their functions using the new system for IP management. Any data discrepancy or lack of functionality vs. the legacy docketing systems is corrected and the IP department often is able to achieve a number of incremental improvements through increased efficiencies.
For most IP departments, it takes 1-2 full cycles using the new system in order to reach this stage. For invention disclosures, it could be the first patent committee meeting and for patent management, it could be the drafting through filing process.
Stage 4: Extend Capabilities
By this point, users and IP departments have become more familiar with the capabilities of the new IP management system. As additional functionality unavailable during the initial go-live is added, IP departments are able to expand their benefits. The capabilities of the IP management software is further aligned with their business processes and goals.
Stage 5: Create New Capabilities
The big benefits derived from implementing IP management systems often come from utilizing the clean, integrated data entered by inventors, patent committee members, outside counsels, paralegals, and other key stakeholders. This data open doors to create new, highly differentiated capabilities and services for competitive advantage.
At this stage, IP departments are able to make significant changes to the way they do business, removing many traditional constraints. This usually takes 1-2 years following full IP management software implementation.
Both costs and benefits of an IP management system are strongly related to life-cycle factors. This fundamental fact should be well understood before initiating any project or selecting any vendor.
Lecorpio intellectual property management software applications very intuitive and easy to understand. The "à la carte" model allows IP departments to implement a practical phased implementation of each application. Lecorpio IP management implementation methodology focuses on enabling the end user, this approach provides faster ROI.
Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Posted by Jerry Lamigo on Mon, Mar 15, 2010
Things are not always what they appear. What may initially seem like an excellent price on Intellectual Asset Management Software, may end up costing you more in the long run.
A myriad of other factors come into play such as cost of operations, cost of maintenance, useful life span, and training costs. Over the effective life of an intellectual asset management application, the cost of maintenance and support dwarfs the cost of initial deployment.
Let's take the example of purchasing a car. By no means is this the end to all car-related expenses. You won't get more than three hundred miles before the gas tank needs filling, oil changes, new tires, various filters, belts, hoses, taxes, insurance... all of this contributes to the total cost of owning the vehicle. The same metrics apply to Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for Intellectual Property (IP) asset management software.
There are five major metrics of TCO analysis for the IP asset management software: Acquisition, Implementation, Operations, Maintenance & Replacement.
1. Acquisition
All too often, acquisition costs drive decisions concerning intellectual asset management deployment. This forces attention to up-front, direct, and budgeted costs. Acquisition includes the capital expense of IAM software licenses in the case of on-premise software and the operating expense of the subscription fees in the case of hosted solution. Be sure to know the differences between Hosted or On-Premise IP Asset Management.
For on-premise installations, the acquisition also includes the costs associated with the necessary hardware and infrastructure (operating system, database licenses) to host the application.
On an average, acquisition contributes to 10-15% of the overall cost of ownership of the IAM software.
2. Implementation
The implementation includes services to make the system work for users.
The costs associated with the implementation of the intellectual asset management application include development (customization/configuration), integration, testing, data migration, and training.
It is critical that the system does not require software expertise for any customization. That will make you dependent on the vendor and will cost you dearly in the long term. Ensure that the IP management software provides supportable, off-the-shelf capabilities for data migration from legacy docketing systems as well as integration tools to integrate seamlessly with existing systems. These capabilities should be easy enough for use by the IP team without the need for internal IT support or outside consultants. Read more on IP Management Data Migration.
On an average, the implementation contributes to 30-40% of the overall cost of ownership of the IAM software.
3. Operations
The operational costs occur in time and productivity loss. These costs are more difficult to quantify, tend to be process and people oriented, and often add significantly to the TCO. They can include unproductive end-user time, troubleshooting, and system downtime.
For measuring operational costs associated with intellectual asset management software, pay attention to how much staff is required to operate the application smoothly. Choose an application that can be managed without an IT/vendor team as opposed to the one that requires IT/vendor help for basic operational changes. These "people" costs contribute heavily to overall TCO.
On an average, the operations contribute to 30-40% of the overall cost of ownership of the IAM software.
4. Maintenance
The maintenance costs include country law updates, patches, upgrades and administration of the hardware, software, and databases.
Many hard coded IP asset management applications require significant downtime and break custom processes during upgrades. While determining maintenance costs, include the support labor hours and the management overhead to oversee any issues.
On an average, the maintenance and support costs contribute about 15-20% of the overall cost of ownership of the IAM software.
5. Replacement
It is important that you don't lock yourself into a specific IP asset management software vendor. During or after the expected life span, you should be able to transition to better software with ease. The software should provide you the tools to export the data easily into new applications. Often, this is difficult to determine upfront. You need to consider the extra support needed as you get up to speed with the new application.
On an average, replacement contributes to 10-15% of the overall cost of ownership of the IAM software.
The long term goals of IP asset management deserve the most sustained attention; In the short term, tactical cost reductions should not impede the achievement of long term goals and priorities.
Lecorpio provides a powerful intellectual asset management solution with comprehensive functionality, can be deployed 2 times faster, at a lower upfront cost and overall 50% of the total cost of operations than competitors. This is possible because unlike hard coded competitive applications, Lecorpio utilizes a powerful, model-based application platform. This results in faster turnarounds, lower maintenance costs, and better user adoption.
Get more information on best practices for IP asset management project implementation. Please post your thoughts to the comments.
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Posted by Jerry Lamigo on Mon, Mar 01, 2010
Intellectual Asset Management is not only a technical project but more importantly a business project. In fact, Intellectual Asset Management is a mindset on managing your IP and the real work starts once the technology is deployed.
New technology brings change and change in any organization inevitably attracts resistance. This is especially true when the change has to do with the implementation of a new intellectual property (IP) management software solution.
The challenge is getting inventors to accept new applications and processes, in spite of feeling uncomfortable with the prospect of having to change their habits and conform to an unfamiliar system.
Here are five proven tips to overcome the user adoption conundrum:
Demonstrate Value:
You should be able to demonstrate clearly the value proposition of your new IP management system. Inventors get direct benefits from IP management software such as: effortless submission of new ideas, visibility into their past submissions, real-time status of their awards, access to corporate knowledgebase and much more. By communicating direct benefits, it is easier to get them onboard.
Keep it Simple:
With exception to prolific inventors, most inventors are most likely to visit your IP management portal a few times a month. Create an interface that is simple and easy to use.
Avoid multiple clicks. If it's practical, get them the necessary information and actions within 2 clicks. The most common actions include the ability to submit a new invention disclosure or check on the status of previously submitted ideas or patent applications.
Start Off Small:
Rollout the IP management software in bite-sized chunks. Start with invention disclosure submission and review process. Once they are familiar with this process, introduce them to patent management. Keep adding more features such as open source, NDA, licensing, and other features until they have gradually begin using all major functions of the software in their normal routine.
Work the Way They Work:
Most inventors and patent committee members are used to a certain system. This may not be a technology based system, but it is still a functional system. While deploying, you should look at improving existing processes, but equally balance it by adapting the new IP management system to their own working style.
Use Incentives:
Incentives are a tool for proactively shaping growth. Your incentive program should tie their benefits to a well-considered strategic development plan.
For example, if your award program pays some amount for each disclosure approval, make a clear declaration that the amount will be paid only for electronically submitted disclosures.
Lecorpio IP management software applications are very intuitive and easy to understand. The "à la carte" model allows IP departments to implement a practical phased implementation of each application. Lecorpio IP management implementation methodology focuses on enabling the end user, this approach provides faster ROI.
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