IP Strategies International

Kevin P. Ashby, B.Sc.(Chem.Eng.), LL.B.

September 2004

CLIENT CIRCULAR #3: Recognizing an IP Strategy

Forrest Gump is portrayed as having inspired a number of modern catchphrases. “Inventions happen” wasn’t one of them.

Yet, many inventions do happen. Call it serendipity. But most are testimony to 99% perspiration and only 1% inspiration: An inventor faced with a technical problem determinedly sets about solving it. Organisations adopt strategies to produce patents that are planned.

Having a well thought-out intellectual property (IP) strategy can help reduce your sweat percentage and save you money by avoiding irrelevant patenting.

Business is rich with military imagery and terminology. As a strategist, you play the general. You apply your strategy to bring a required result - to win the sales “war” - by setting achievable goals and making specific plans to achieve them. You reach them by implementing the plans – i.e. fighting the battles.

For example, let us say you are in the male cosmetics business and market research concludes that males pay more attention to the appearance of their cars than to themselves. You devise a marketing campaign that focuses on the face as an extension of the car, e.g. “What’s the good of having a great looking car if you can’t match it with your face?” You instruct your R&D to look into the technical feasibility of including certain active ingredients known in car wax in a new line of male cosmetics and to find new ones that can be used in both, while you research a branding strategy that will evoke sport scar associations in the mind of the consumer male.

To support your investment in the R&D, you apply a patent strategy of patenting links between the identified ingredients and the facial appearance benefits they produce, so as to cordon off the area to competitors. The strategy will not be apparent immediately to outsiders, as it takes 18 months for new patent applications to be published. Once the pattern of patenting car wax ingredients for male cosmetics is evident, it will often be too late for competitors to disrupt it. A strategic position is secured.

Next week: Savings from strategies.

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ashby@ipstratint.com; www.ipstratint.com