Have you secured your intellectual property?

Not having IP protection, particularly patents of your inventions, can cost you

INTELLECTUAL Property (IP) protection has been a point of heated debate in technology commercialisation spheres for a long time, with opposing views not only on whether it is a worthwhile process, but on the IP system in general.

Regardless of whether one falls into the yay or nay camp, history has shown us that choosing not to protect one’s valuable IP assets is a risky move.

The Technology Transfer Office (TTO) of the Water Research Commission held a workshop last week, the purpose of which was to stimulate a conversation around enhancing the management of IP within the water sector.

One of the issues addressed during the workshop was that of the protection of IP, and the dangers associated with foregoing this protection.

What happens if you do not protect your inventions?

When it comes to IP protection, the stakes are quite high. A mistake or misjudgment in the management of IP can be extremely costly to an organisation in that IP rights can be lost or, even worse, obtained by the competition.

There exists a scenario whereby two organisations embarking on research in the same field may invent similar products. If the company which invented first does not pursue IP protection, the second company may later protect the same or very similar invention. Should this protection be granted, this would have the effect of legitimately excluding the first company from the market, limit its activities, and possibly force the first company to pay licensing fees in order to exploit their own invention.

This scenario is particularly problematic when the first company has built its entire business on the invention.

In a similar scenario, an organisation comes up with a novel and innovative product and chooses not to pursue protection thereof. Once the product has become wildly successful, many companies could make the same product without having to compensate the first company.

Additionally, companies which have more resources would be able to manufacture the same product at lower costs, and therefore take advantage of scale economies to sell their product cheaper.

Even smaller companies could sell the product at a lower price because they would have no need to recoup research and development costs that the first company would have incurred. In both these cases, the first company would have no legitimate way of halting the others’ activities, and so would lose significant market share because they would need to sell the product at a higher price, or risk making a loss.

An organisation’s ability to license, sell or transfer their technologies could be severely hindered without IP rights. In order to transfer technology, it is presupposed that the organisation doing the transferring owns said IP.

Negotiations could also become less productive as one would be sceptical about disclosing one’s inventions fearing that the party at the other end of the negotiation might run with said invention without the owner of the IP.

More often than not, IP protection, particularly patents, is crucial when negotiating to transfer technology through its licensing.

The above scenarios could also result in the commercialisation of innovation becoming less likely, due to lack of investment. Investors require a return on their investments, which they are less likely to realise if competitors have access to the same offerings they have invested in.

Investment in the implementation of an innovation is crucial to its development, which is often more important than the invention itself.

Successfully getting an invention to market requires the undertaking of activities such as marketing, feasibility studies, and manufacturing, all of which require investment.

As a last thought, it is important to remember that intellectual property is meant to assist an organisation in its endeavours; that is it is not a goal in itself.

Merely having IP for the sake of it is a pointless and often costly exercise, as IP should be viewed as an aid in commercialising innovations and running a successful science-based business.

Having a successful patented product is worlds different from just having a patent.

An organisation’s ability to license, sell or transfer their technologies could be severely hindered without IP rights.