Andrew Watson and JS Hatcher of ipVA co-wrote an article on Broken IP business structures for the April 2009 issue of Managing IP. In it, they discuss how IP can best be integrated into the business in order to maximise its value as a business asset.

IP/Business Personality types

We drew inspiration for thinking about IP as an asset as part of business structures from the Insights Discovery Learning System, which breaks down personality types into distinct groups (based on Jung and as those ideas have evolved), and grouped by colour:

• Blue – Accurate, Ordered, and Cautious
• Green – Team player, Patient, and Reliable
• Red – Decision maker, Risk taker, and Results Driven
• Yellow – Innovative, Sociable, and Dynamic

We took these colour types and applied them to “business personalities” based on the types of structures we’ve seen working for investors and directly for companies to help build IP into their business.

Our solution: Think Red/Yellow with IP

We saw that businesses tend to take a “Blue” approach to IP in their organisational structure and their approach to protecting and exploiting IP. The result was IP failing to engage with business needs, and particularlly failing to play a role in the thinking of the business at the CEO and C-level.

Our solution is to move IP within your business so that it serves a dynamic and results-oriented role. This often means taking IP out of its place in the legal department as solely a cost of doing business.

For more on how to make IP an effective part of your business, please download the full article at: Fix Your Broken IP Structures.

ipVA provides IP strategy services and products that help businesses and investors better understand and manage IP. For more, see the rest of our site and get in contact.