siliconindia | | July 20199gible to intangible assets. IP doesn't necessarily have to be something revolutionary; a simple solution to an existing problem could be a game changer. IP is being generated around us always. The important ele-ment is to identify, sow the seeds of its protection, followed by reaping the benefits.In recent years, IP has been given an up-thrust by Government of India, which is evident from the initiatives like announcement of na-tion's first IP policy (after 69 years of independence), launch of CI-PAM, AGNIi (Accelerating Growth of New India's Innovations under Invest India) and several high-level administrative reforms.To understand what it takes to be an IP Savvy organization, let's tra-verse into various stages of IP life-cycle, which are IP Generation, IP Protection, IP Enforcement, and IP Commercialization (last two stages are inter-linked and overlapping). The IP journey takes-off with R&D, wherein the idea is concep-tualized at first. R&D process could be sped-up by using valuable infor-mation disclosed in patents. Smart use of patent documents provides valuable information on state-of the art, which may enable an enterprise to avoid unnecessary wastage of re-sources, thereby reducing the time and high R&D costs. Patent informa-tion could also be used for improve-ments and/or to design-around. A patent whose equivalent hasn't been filed for protection in a country of in-terest, can also be utilized in similar way. You may name it `Smart R&D' (Generation stage).It's also important to ensure that the subject invention doesn't end-up infringing IPs of others and therefore, an FTO (Freedom to Operate) evalu-ation is required to avoid potential risk factors. In the protection stage, the invention is filed for protection. Once IP is registered, the IP holder becomes entitled to hold others liable for infringing their IP (Enforcement stage). Finally, the revenue genera-tion stage arrives where investment into the IP is recovered and, monetary gains are made through licensing of core or non-core IP, assignment, and filing of infringement proceedings. Manytimes, premature decline of companies is due to lack of imple-mentation of appropriate IP strategies at early stages of their life cycle. For better understanding of commercial angle interlinked with IP, let's take an illustration of Tivo Corporation, an American technology company which was on the verge of matu-rity stage in 2017, but miraculously turned their entire revenue stream by adopting IP monetization strategies, and thus boosted their revenue by 57 percent in 2017 itself.Lack of resources often drives enterprises to opt for keeping their innovation hidden in order to avoid the costs of IP protection. Often, these enterprises tend to overlook the possibility of accidental disclosures, which eventually lead to snapping the IPs out of their hands. A budding IP savvy company can rather easily partner with dominant players of that sector and ensure accelerated entry and growth in the market.Some of the parables in the his-tory of IP are Arunachalam Muruga-nantham (a low-cost sanitary pad ma-chine), Bikram Choudhury (devised his style of yoga - Bikram Yoga), Kannan Lakshminarayan (Carding Machine), and Shepards (a spill proof bowl - Gyro Bowl). There are many such success stories from across the globe, wherein the grass-root inno-vators, startups, and MSMEs have made their fortune just by being IP savvy. You may have come across American Genius and Shark Tank. In both these TV series, you will ob-serve IP to be at the core of all the business strategies.Adopting appropriate IP strate-gies can turn any business into an ev-ergreen tree with its roots built upon a flow of everlasting revenue. Further, it enables an entity to avoid unfortu-nate encounter of pitfalls of disrup-tion. Thus, IP, true to its name, is an income producing cash cow instead of a pocket burning white elephant, if used wisely. Adopting appropriate IP strategies can turn any business into an evergreen tree with its roots built upon a flow of everlasting revenueINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: A CASH COW OR WHITE ELEPHANTVivek Singh
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