The question is this; why is it that when a company realizes they have developed a truly innovative product and/or service their thoughts tend to rapidly gravitate (initially) to contacting intellectual property counsel to get the innovation patented?
Just how vulnerable are companies to having their proprietary-sensitive information, data, and intellectual property stolen or comprised as a consequence of the current recession?
Today’s security (information asset protection) practitioners are expressing more concern about ‘insiders’ leaking – compromising sensitive company data that they are about ‘outsiders’ breaking (hacking) in and stealing it according to various current studies and surveys.
While there’s no silver bullet or rabbit to be pulled out of a hat, understanding your company’s intangible assets and recognizing various strategies to (better) utilize, leverage, and extract (more) value from those assets, especially during this financial crisis (recession) is a worthy use of decision makers’ time.
Getting intangible assets on decision makers’ radar screens and board room agendas as routine ‘action items’ in good (financial) times is challenging enough, notwithstanding the very real (in your face) distractions businesses are experiencing globally with the recession.
Unlike patents, trademarks, or copyrights…there is no certificate issued by the government that says, ‘the real value of your company lies in its intangible assets, competitive advantages, proprietary know how, brand, reputation, image, and goodwill!