Management Cousel Newsletter: Issue 1
Intellectual Property Management

Organizations of all sizes and purposes are finding that they have an interest in managing intellectual property.
Intellectual Property (IP) includes trade-marks, copyrights, computer software and hardware, patents, industrial designs and trade secrets.

Laws exist in Canada and most other jurisdictions e.g. U.S., Europe, that set out an organization's IP rights and obligations. It is important to understand and take advantage of the protection offered and to avoid costs from related conflicts.

Intellectual Property Management Services
We work with the law firm Ogilvie LLP, and with other professionals in areas ranging from engineering to accounting, to provide intellectual property management services. We help:
- identify what IP exists
- establish what preventive steps can be taken to protect the IP from inadvertent loss to another party's actions
  (accidental or deliberate), including:
- non disclosure and confidentiality agreements
- non-competition agreements
- licensed rights
- physical, operational, administrative controls
- employment contracts, including ownership over IP now and in the future
  - licensing relationships and approaches, including:
  - negotiations
  - contracting
  - performance monitoring

Managing Trade Secrets
An important area that can be overlooked by many organizations is trade secrets.

Trade secrets represent the knowledge of how an organization competes, how it works. Trade secrets can mean the difference between operating loss or profit: if everyone knows what we do and how, we can lose our advantage.

Employment practices, file management, contractual relationships and physical controls are elements to be managed to protect trade secrets.

Intellectual Property Affects All Organizations
Not only are the makers and owners of IP affected by IP issues: the users of IP must also be in touch with IP matters. For example, when your organization "buys" software, it is normally only buying a license to use the software in the way and within the terms specified by the license.

Inappropriate use of IP is not only a matter of contractual obligations: there may be consequences as far as the courts are concerned as well, e.g. copyright infringement, as reflected by unauthorized copying of a software program, can result in significant penalties.

As a beginning strategy in intellectual property management ask yourself:
1. What intellectual property do you have in your possession?
2. Is it yours?
3. How do you protect it?
4. Can you make additional returns through leverage of the intellectual property, perhaps through licensing?
5. Do you need to protect your IP from employee exploitation? from contractors or suppliers?
6. If you are using others' IP, what rights do you have?
7. Are you respecting the rights of the others' IP?
8. For new IP that is likely to emerge, what procedure do you use to capture its value?