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.
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