Michael D. Moberly   March 4, 2013       ‘A blog where attention span matters’!

Its 2013, and globally operating businesses are still in the initial stages of, to be sure, a permanent knowledge (intangible asset) based economy.  The objective is clear, compelling, and absolutely necessary.  That is, at this juncture, law firms with genuine intellectual property (IP) practices in place coupled with a strong culture – orientation for a strategic ‘forward looking – forward thinking’, may well be the professional entity best positioned to provide intangible asset stewardship, oversight, and management (S.O.M.) services beyond providing merely patent, trademark, and copyright issuances and the all, but inevitable, litigation.

This can only occur, I believe, with a dedicated, ‘roll your sleeves up’ client centric intangible asset awareness, alertness, and accountability (training) initiative.  It’s not terribly costly, nor is it overly time consuming, but it’s an excellent strategy  to legitimately re-engage existing clients as well as engage new-prospective clients, and if effectively articulated, will likely be met with real appreciation.

Intangible assets exist in numerous categories, serve company’s (the originators, holders of those assets) in many capacities, and of course, can provide substantial levels of  ‘contributory value’ and competitive advantages.  That is providing. of course, those company management teams, c-suites, and boards achieve (possess) both tactical and strategic operational familiarity with intangible assets’ relevance and use as viable and consistent contributors to (company) value, sources of revenue, and ‘building blocks’ for sustainability, profitability, and growth.

In brief, the client centric awareness, alertness, and accountability initiatives I’m referring to should, at minimum, include components (modules) to for client companies to become smarter insofar as…

•  Identifying intangible asset vulnerabilities and capabilities to rapidly detect and pursue suspected instances of (asset) compromise, loss, erosion of (asset) value and/or competitive advantages, anyone of which will jeopardize (asset) ownership, control, and use.
• Becoming an entrusted custodian of clients’ intangible assets through (asset) stewardship, oversight, and management (S.O.M.) that can be genuinely leveraged to attract additional intangible asset (client) services.
• Become a vehicle to accelerate a law firm’s entrée to build – extend intangible asset service initiatives into new, perhaps non-traditional and/or unconventional market spaces, i.e., (a.) trusted overseer of university-industry collaborative research projects, (b.) stronger role in investment and venture capital initiatives where intangible assets are key players, (c.) helping clients negotiate cyber – IP insurance coverage and premiums etc.
• Enhancing a companies’ ability to recognize asset life, contributory value, and competitive advantage cycles and act accordingly in a strategic and well informed manner.
• Instituting (asset) competitive advantage – contributory value safeguards, i.e., companies that effectively safeguard its proprietary intangible assets, simultaneously safeguards its ability to distinguish itself in its market space through the uniqueness of its knowhow, i.e., its intellectual, structural, and relationship capital, etc.
• Achieving more efficient, expedited, but expanded use of legal counsel by concentrating on IP and intangible asset S.O.M. issues and less on corrective or remediating client missteps.
• Strengthening client non-disclosure, confidentiality, and non-compete provisions in employment contracts to include the full array of intangible assets.
• Strengthening investor confidence in a company by executing intangible asset risk exposures mitigation – prevention practices.

 My blog posts are researched and written by me with the genuine intent they serve as a worthy and respectful venue to elevate awareness and appreciation for intangible assets throughout the global business community.  Most of my posts focus on issues related to identifying, unraveling, and sustaining control, use, ownership, and monitoring asset value, materiality, and risk.  As such, my blog posts are not intended to be quick bites of information, unsubstantiated commentary, or single paragraphed platforms to reference other media. 

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