IP Strategy and Collaboration

Why is there the need to attach the word “strategy” to issues concerning IP management when dealing in the Bazaar of Opportunities? As discussed in the previous chapters of the book, the creation and management of knowledge inside and outside of a company as well as knowledge between companies involves many decisions, the impact of which can be permanent or long term at least. At first, creation of new knowledge is a time-consuming and costly process, while it is only too easy to lose that same knowledge in a short time due to, for example, ill-conducted collaboration, vaguely worded contracts, or with loss of key company employees. Yet, in the typical stylistic depiction of open innovation in the literature, the innovation funnel, illustrated in Fig. 2.1, knowledge transfer can perhaps too easily be understood as simple symmetric one-off transactions in and out of the company. Secondly, as we have already said: “…open innovation is all about sharing…” It means that IP management in the context of open and networked innovation is not only about protection of knowledge, but it is also about controlled sharing of knowledge. We also recall that in the Bazaar of Opportunities the term “intellectual property” may not only include IP rights that are granted and protected by the laws, but also the knowledge and other intangible resources whose use may be controlled by contracts, policies, organization and process routines and norms, both physically and technically.There are numerous ways in which competitive or corporate strategy can and has been viewed in the literature.1 In addition, the word strategy itself can—or so often it seems—be linked to almost any kind of activity that is performed inside or between companies. Likewise, in the area of intellectual property management, strategy can refer to various topics. We view long-term and systematic processes as the key features distinguishing a strategic approach from an ad hoc basis. In this chapter, therefore, we broaden the examination of collaboration and networked innovation perspectives to IP management to the strategic level of view. The chapter, however, does not aim to be an all-encompassing treatise on strategy-level issues concerning intellectual property management. Rather, we seek to connect the ideas of networked innovation presented in the previous chapters to the discussion of higher-level objectives of IP management. We examine the impacts of increased interdependence and collaboration within the context of knowledge creation and transfer between companies, and highlight the resulting implications to IP strategy.