Using IP audits to optimize IP assets

Abstract

Obtaining, maintaining and leveraging intellectual property (IP) rights on important or critical technologies requires a significant investment of both money and time. In the current challenging economic times, it is more important than ever for owners of IP assets to ensure those assets are yielding sufficient return-on-investment (ROI). This is true whether the owning entity is a corporation, an academic institution, an individual or a non-profit. In a typical organization, however, there is often a substantial percentage of underperforming IP assets in the portfolio. Conducting routine IP asset audits is one of the best management tools for regularly reviewing an IP portfolio and ensuring that individual IP assets within it are not idle and are yielding sufficient ROI.