Posted by Lecorpio Client Services on Sat, Jul 17, 2010
Intellectual Asset Management Software (often known as Patent Docketing Software) has the potential to transform the way patent departments relate to and even think about their role as providers of IP support services to the rest of the enterprise. The emergence of web based patent docketing software creates an opportunity for IP departments to change their focus from docket data entry to enterprise wide intellectual property asset management. A successful service-centric IP department, in turn, directly produces more value for the business by leveraging knowledge from both internal clients and external service providers and align closely with business goals.
Selecting the right patent docketing software can be a challenge. You can find a lot of information about patent docketing software evaluation online. This post provides some tips on getting acceptance from your IT department. For some patent departments, this can be overwhelming. The reason is not often not the budget, but the strenuous process of getting a new software. Lack of time and knowledge about the software only exacerbate the situation and many departments give up. Here are some points for you to prepare yourself when you bring IT department into the discussion.
Data Security
Patent data requires high level of security. Your IT department is likely to raise this as a concern, even more when your vendor is hosted your data outside your firewall. You should ensure that the potential patent docketing software vendor has measures in place to meet the standards.
Migration Plan
Your IT department would be concerned about the data migration plan. They would want to know if the data contained inside the patent docketing software application can be exported and moved into another one. How easy would that process be? You can check with prospective patent docketing software provider about any data-migration strategies and procedures it uses, including any provisions for data and code escrow.
Performance
Your IT department is likely to be interested in the service-level agreements (SLAs) that guarantee the level of performance, availability, and security that the patent docketing software will provide, and govern the actions the provider will take—or the compensation it will provide—in the event that it fails to meet these guarantees. You should check with your prosective vendors about these types of SLAs.
Integration
To maximize the benefits from patent docketing software, you may want to have an integration in place to activate new users and deactivate terminated employees automatically without any user intervention. This and other scenarios require integration between your patent docketing software and other corporate IT systems. Please ensure from your prospective vendor about the integration capabilities of their patent docketing software.
Lecorpio has an excellent track record of successful patent docketing software project implementations. Lecorpio's professional services use a powerful combination of strategic insight and superior execution to optimize the cost and efficiency of our client's IP operations. Feel free to contact us if you need more information on best practices for Intellectual asset management project implementation.
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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 08, 2010
The market for Intellectual Asset Management - IAM Software is fragmented with many smaller organizations providing a wealth of features and functionality. This makes it difficult for corporate IP departments to choose the best software for their needs.
A number of our customers started their selection process looking at over 30 software vendors. Each vendor claimed to have the most comprehensive solution. The selection process was long (sometimes over 2-3 years), frustrating and confusing.
Here are the top five tips that will help you reduce the number of vendors for your evaluation and to separate the wheat from the chaff:
1. Usability
Without this, nothing else matters. If your users will not adopt and use your selection, it's a waste of time and effort. You should look beyond the glitz and try to understand how your users will accept the new IAM system. In short, the user interface should be simple and intuitive for the first time user.
2. Accessibility
If the software is not accessible via standard web browsers such as IE, Firefox, Safari or Chrome, discard it immediately. To make your IAM system deployment successful, you need strong adoption from your inventor community. In many organizations, inventors use different types of computers, operating systems, and browsers.
Your Intellectual Asset Management application should support such variations seamlessly.
3. Configuration
Ask you vendor to demonstrate how to add a new field of your choice. Most vendors who claim to have the most configurable application will hesitate to do this. If your selected software does not have tools to do these basic tasks, you got yourself locked into the vendor's roadmap.
4. Searching and Reporting
How good is IAM software if it can't provide good searching and reporting tools? It is frustrating to many users that they can't easily get to the data that they entered a few months ago. Ask vendors to demo their searching capabilities and make sure the searching and reporting tools are part of the basic system and do not require a PHD degree in rocket science.
5. Integration
If you have been previously involved in the deployment of IAM software, you already know it. The world of "docketing in a black box" is over for corporate legal departments. It is critical that your software can be easily integrated with other systems inside your organizations such as HR, accounts payable, active directory, etc.
Lecorpio IP Asset Management solution has been designed for strong user adoption, is accessible on all browsers, and provides robust configuration capabilities. Please don't hesitate to contact us for a free consulting session to help you better plan for a successful Intellectual Asset Management software project.
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