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IP protection not standard in electronics organizations

EE Times Design - July 2010

Inventions are the lifeblood of many communications and electronics companies.  But if  those ideas and products are not protected from theft, all that hard work and creativity has been in vain.  Unfortunately too many organizations are failing to ensure that their intellectual property (IP) is secure.  In addition, many businesses are not clear about how to value their IP, nor how to commercialise those designs and inventions. 

IP is one part of a much larger entity known as intellectual capital which includes a number of aspects including workforce skills, business processes, customer and business relationships, branding, reputation and the know-how of employees. Ideas and inventions indeed are the lifeblood, but it is the wider intellectual capital that drives growth and sustainability.

It is in the standards arena that many electronics companies may not realize how important their IP may be or how vulnerable they are without it.  Standards are integral in allowing electronics companies to develop or make products that will work with each other and to the customer’s expectations.  The strategy for these companies is to ensure their organisation’s technology is incorporated into the standard.  For each standard or proposed standard, there are numerous standards meetings – often several per year.  At these meetings, R&D employees present their recommendations as to how the standard should evolve.  If they are fortunate, they will have included some if not all of their recommendation into the standard.  These recommendations will, of course, relate to an organisation’s technology and to possible patentable inventions or patents. more >