My Presentation at IP Counsel 2013: Shenzhen Station

March 19-20 was the 5th IP Counsel Congress held at Shenzhen, one of 3 2013 IP Counsel events in China managed by JFPS Group. This was their first year in Shenzhen, and I think it was highly successful. I think about 150 delegates from China and other nations were present, including IP leaders and influencers from Hungary, Germany, South Africa, Korea, Japan, and other nations.

I was especially pleased to learn from IP leaders from some of the world's leading IP generators such as ZTE, the top international filer recently.

 I had the pleasure of chairing day one of the two-conference, and being the lead speaker with my presentation on IP, China, and innovation. I briefly retraced some of the monumental achievements in the history of China, including some major inventions that the West originally thought came from the West but actually started in China. I began with the example of the printed book, and quizzed the audience about who invented the world's first mass-produced book printed with movable type? Gutenberg is a pretty good answer and his Bible was a remarkable achievement, one that came just 142 years after the world's first mass-produced book printed with movable type was created in China by Wang Zhen. Had some fun with that bit of history, and caught a lot of the Chinese people by surprise. Many don't realize how rich China's tradition of innovation actually is.

 Today, many people think of China as a great copier, but China is rapidly and deliberately moving from a copier to an inventor and a leading source of IP. There are still barriers and inertia to overcome, but the goal is being realized and by the time the West understands the significance of this transformation, many players will have missed the opportunity of a lifetime and some will be completely disrupted. Those who recognize what is happening here may more wisely prepare for the opportunities and risks that will be created, and adapt.

China as a source of innovation and IP must not be ignored. But tapping its potential requires a deeper understanding of Chinese culture and business, which is much different that what the West is used to. I gave some basic tips and reviewed the importance of Chinese concepts such as guanxi, yuanfen (destiny in chance encounters), and hexie (harmony).

Intellectual Assey Strategy That Leads Innovation

The primary problem with most IP management efforts is that they are reactive only. These systems typically focus on incoming invention disclosures and existing patent applications, leading to recommendations on which disclosures to file, which countries to file in, and which existing applications to abandon for cost control. These are vital components for intellectual asset (IA) management, but they fall short in providing strategy that can inform prospective inventors about what kind of inventions are needed.

Effective IA management begins not with the processing of existing documents, but with the development and articulation of vision to guide the process of IA generation and acquisition. It begins with a roadmap of what the corporation needs to own and protect, and that roadmap can then be infused into a written IA strategy statement that guides the IA-generating community to know what they need to create, and also guides IA committees to know what they should be approving.

Written strategy statements can help innovators be more successful and decision makers more disciplined, though there must also be leeway for out-of-the-strategy-box inventions that could lead to unexpected opportunities. However, most IA generating work in a corporation can and should be targeted and focused on specific objectives.

Once a clear vision is communicated regarding the IA needs of the corporation, IA generating activities can be used to supplement normal new product development and R&D. These exercises can be driven by the IA management team to achieve low-cost IA estates in targeted areas for specific objectives, such as averting a disruptive threat, laying a foundation for future IP in a potentially disruptive area where R&D investment is not yet available, weakening the IP potential of a competitive merger or acquisition, etc. At least a portion of the IA generating efforts of a corporation should be driven from the top with a clear objective in mind, rather than waiting for random invention disclosures to trickle up during the course of normal R&D activities. IA strategy should lead innovation.

Conducting Innovation Sessions to Generate IP: Preparation is the Key

At Innovationedge, one of my favorite activities is working with a team in what we call an "Edge Session" to create new intellectual assets. It's not not brain storming, where a flood of bad ideas are welcome, but an iterative process in which the goal is enabled, good concepts that are fleshed out enough to support drafting of a meaningful invention disclosures. A key part of the Edge Session is refining problem statements, moving from broad, vague questions to more specific problem statements that guide inventors on what is needed. We introduce stimulus elements that are coupled with the problem statements to stimulate thinking. The stimulus elements can be used in addressing a problem directly or as associative thinking tools to change the way people look at the problem--all part of the steps along the way to creating records of an enabled invention that, in turn, can readily support IP generation such as drafting a patent application, documenting a trade secret, or preparing a defensive publication.

Preparation has been the key for success. A big part of the preparation is ours as we dig into the literature, patents, and competitive intelligence. Sometimes we conduct pre-workshop interviews to get a landscape of what the client already knows so that we can better begin with that starting point as we help them create and document more.

The preparation by the client is also critical. One key part of their preparation is the selection of team members. Groups of about 5 to 25 people work well, with maybe 7 to 15 being the preferred range. The group works well if there is sufficient diversity in experience and background. For example, even in dealing with highly technical problems, I like to have at least one marketer in the team, someone with great hands-on experience dealing with consumer insights or other sources of marketing information. The perspective a good marketing person can bring is often vital for the success of an IP-generation project.

Teams also can be more effective when the prepare by reading the materials we provide on the prior art, competitive efforts, etc. We recognize, though, that many times team members won't have had adequate time or motivation to prepare other than showing up. We can still squeeze good information from the unprepared, for much of what they have to contribute creatively is already in their heads. It just may take a little more effort to get it out and documented,