Intellectual Property Management Tips: Getting the Right Support

The ongoing management of your intellectual property (IP) portfolio is an important and potentially demanding task. Using professional people, services, and technologies with expertise in IP management can help maximize your brand’s success.  

A variety of professional figures can provide support, tips, and advice for effective management of your IP portfolio, from internal professionals to external counsel and technology. Management of an IP portfolio ideally employs a combination of these three professional resources; however, choosing only one or two can work, depending on the complexity of the work involved in managing your portfolio.  

Depending on the size of your company and its IP portfolio, different management tactics may prove more beneficial than others, so it’s important to consider your individual circumstances when assessing the following options.  

In-House IP Professionals  

The first of these professional figures is an in-house department of IP professionals. This is a key way to ensure the successful management of your IP portfolio from within your own business. Experts in the legal protection and management of IP are crucial members of an in-house IP department, helping ensure that issues concerning your portfolio are dealt with as they arise.  

Having these professionals in-house means they will always be close by in case of any emergencies and, as your own employed professionals, they will be focused solely on your portfolio. An in-house team is also more likely to be aware of any ongoing issues or changes with your portfolio and, therefore, can deal with them potentially more quickly than external counsel could.  

Employing in-house IP professionals to manage your IP portfolio may prove cheaper than hiring external counsel, as many businesses already have an internal legal department. Assigning the management of your IP portfolio to these professionals will avoid the payment of additional fees.  

If you do not already have an in-house department of IP legal professionals within your business, either because you have a small business or you outsource legal assistance to external counsel, then it may not be worth creating one solely for the purpose of managing your IP portfolio. Indeed, if you have been outsourcing your legal issues to external counsel thus far, then it may be more beneficial, depending on the size of your portfolio, to simply delegate the management of your portfolio to them.  

External Professionals  

External counsels who are experts in IP are probably the most helpful professional figures you can hire to manage your portfolio. External counsel who specialize in portfolio management will have invaluable expertise and know the best ways to manage and exploit your IP to its full potential.  

Regardless of whether you have an in-house IP department already and are looking for support in your IP portfolio management, or whether your portfolio would rely solely on external professionals, having a trusted external counsel is a valuable asset to any business with IP.  

External professionals are particularly more cost-effective than an in-house department where your portfolio is relatively small, or you do not already have in-house professionals. Moreover, hiring external professionals to either supplement your in-house team or to manage your portfolio alone provides you the opportunity to ‘shop around’—you can find the professionals who are best suited to your portfolio and your needs.  

Technology, including Artificial Intelligence  

Aside from in-house and external legal professionals, technology can go a long way in helping with the management of your IP portfolio. Software is now available to assist with IP portfolio management, such as notifying the owners of any potential impending issues or deadlines. Arguably, this software is key to the successful management of your portfolio, as well as substantially easing a lot of the burdens associated with IP ownership and management.  

Looking forward, artificial intelligence (AI) will form an even more important aspect of professional IP portfolio management, with the possibility that AI could take a leading role in automating the management of certain IP tasks.  

Such technology could identify issues with your portfolio, alert you to errors, and even rectify them without needing to seek your input. This could ease the management process, substantially, as well as potentially make it cheaper.