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Sunday, June 25, 2006

IP Professionals Excoriated: "The Market is Overcrowded With People Who Have Developed One-Dimensional Competencies".

Patent professionals live in a challenging time now. While in former times the field of IP Law had mattered only in quite esoteric circles of experts, it now is well within the focus of public political attention.

The latest issue No. 18 of the (off-line only) printed magazine IAM ("Intellectual Asset Management") mostly consumed by IP management people is devoted to the question

"Time to break free - Why the world needs a new type of IP manager".

This motto appears, however, to be somewhat ambiguous: On the one hand, this can be understood as a call for some limited reforms within, in particular, but not limited to, the existing system of patent protection. Mr. Roya Ghafele of WIPO and Mr. Alexander Wurzer of PATEV report:

"[...] Although intellectual property is becoming recognised as an important business asset, we are not yet in a position to maximise its potential. One of the main reasons for this are the silos that have developed in the IP creation and exploitation process. In order to achieve maximum value, what is needed is a new type of IP professional. People who are able to see things in the round and who have an inter-disciplinary approach. [...] The market is overcrowded with people who have developed one-dimensional competencies. The current educational system does not lead to the training of IP professionals in a multi-dimensional way. There are few programmes that aim to train students in IP across various disciplines. While we have clearly succeeded in building up a solid labour force of IP lawyers, as well as general managers and engineers, there is a clear need for IP entrepreneurs who can think and act across disciplines. [...]"

Is there some "presumption of validity" for this hypothesis? I won't dare to disclaim outrightly. The training of the patent professionals indeed is quite limited, providing some aptitude to bring together technology, on the one hand, and law, on the other hand. But aspects of economy or politics are, in general, exterritorial to the realm of the patent attorneys.

Even more radical assertions are given by Ms. Sharon Oriel of Talisker & Associates in the same issue of IAM:

"[...] Today's patent system has developed over a period that can be measured in centuries. However, it may not be able to cope with the challenges of tomorrow. [...] Here is a prediction: Intellectual property is going through a transition; global patent law cannot keep pace with innovation and business models, within 20 years, therefore, patents as we know them today will be obsolete. Through unrestrictede access, knowledge goods become public goods. How do companies then make a return on knowledge?

Companies and countries will develop barter, license and variations on the open source model to create value fairly from intangibles. Fundamentally, intellectual property, when protected, provides incentives for economic gain for a limited time. The legal protection will be replaced by speed to market, which gives the incumbent a limited leadership advantage.

In the interim, we need to think about intellectual property much more broadly. Post-protection, the property enters the public domain and potentially becomes a raw material for the creation of new intellectual property. Even the publication of patents offers material for new ideas to be developed upon the foundation of prior art. In this manner, intangibles can contribute to a web of innovation which involves many companies and countries. Furthermore, patents may be understood as a form of currency- they are a business asset allowing for the transfer of knowledge while creating a market for that knowledge. Business people, policy makers and economists must all recognise that knowledge is the raw material for economic growth, whether we have patents or not. [...]"

For the time being, I do, however, not share this kind of twenty years doom perspective in view of the patent system. The views of Ms. Oriel might perhaps be unterstood by some as resembling a few proposals of FFII. She is a retired professional of The Dow Chemical Company, where her tenure included experience in Central Research, Plastics Technical Service & Development and Plastics Marketing. In addition, she spent over twelve years in Intellectual Capital Management, where her focus was on creating, aligning, and leveraging intangibles for sustainable growth. Currently, she is founder of Talisker & Associates, where she consults with companies and institutions seeking to create sustainable growth using intangibles, and is one of the company co-founders of the Intellectual Capital Managers Gathering. Hence, she apparently can't simply be addressed as a follower of Mr. Stallman and most probably she won't be on FFII's member list. This makes her contribution the more worrisome.

Patent professionals should well be aware of the changing overall climate. The debate on the so-called "software patents" is

dead but this does not mean that the general dispute on IP is over. To the contrary, it appears to have just started.

In this context, I think that it is exciting to learn that one of the three big Patent Offices of the world, namely the European Patent Office (EPO),

is extensively dealing which long-term scenarios which, at least in part,

might have gloomy sides. (Strange enough, however, that the server access statistics of this Blog tell me that only a minor portion of the visitors of this Blog are interested in that matter). And, what about certain rumours saying that the elected President of the EPO, Ms. Brimelow (due to take Office in about twelve months time from now) had given a presentation to AIPPI UK earlier this year, indicating that she was quite frightened about a presentation of Mr. G. von Krogh under the title "A World without IP", Co-moderation with D. Kirkpatrick and J. Zittrain, on the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos dated January 27, 2006?

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