Marshall Phelps Addresses the LES IP100 Executive Forum
Posted on Thu, Feb 02, 2012
On January 30th, Article One board member Marshall Phelps addressed a dinner crowd at this year’s LES IP100 Executive Forum. His speech covered new developments and tools for IP management in the current global IP market.
As described on the event page, the IP100 Executive Forum is “a unique and exclusive gathering of senior executives charged with the IP decision-making responsibilities within their organizations.” The purpose of the forum is to facilitate intimate discussion among the experienced professionals in attendance, on the general topic of corporate IP management. The forum is hosted by the Licensing Executives Society of USA and Canada.
IP Management: Tools for the Future
Mr. Phelps, former IP leader at Microsoft and IBM, spoke on the current state of corporate IP, and on some new developments and tools for managing and evaluating IP. He noted that IP is becoming more and more important in the business world, both in the media and in boardrooms. “You would have to have been living in a cave recently to not realize that IP is at the forefront of economic valuation for companies.” More than ever, he said, IP is a subject of interest for financial analysts and business authors, and IP positions have moved up the organizational chain in many corporations.
Mr. Phelps went on to discuss what is ahead in the world of IP. He argued that legislation curbing patent suits is unlikely, since it would be too hard to define the boundaries of a new law. Another solution that has surfaced is the ability of companies to strike licensing deals. Mr. Phelps noted that “1 to 1” licensing deals between companies have been forged, but are inefficient. In addition, the industry is still searching for a solution to “1 to many” licensing.
Instead, corporate IP managers must utilize new tools and methods in order to better leverage IP. Two such tools are the “Technology Reserve” developed by Snowflake, a merchant bank in Canada, and the Intellectual Property Exchange International, or IPXI. These tools allow corporations to identify small and medium business that are looking for licensing deals. These two technology exchanges help to solve this issue by acting as a middleman between large patent-holding corporations and smaller entities that wish to use their technology.
Article One Community Impact
In addition to these marketplaces for information, Mr. Phelps discussed Article One with a focus on the current landscape of the IP industry. He explained that AOP can increase the percentage of “precise” litigation outcomes through the unique, crowdsourced prior art search model. This model provides access to a wide variety of information through a diverse group of experts working in more than 150 countries around the world. This diversity is what has already driven high-quality results for companies such as 16 of the Fortune 100 and 7 of the Top 10 US Patent Filing Companies.
Mr. Phelps finished his presentation with a challenge to the attendees:
“Please do not let success to date bind you to your existing processes. It is best to always feel a bit uncomfortable, and I believe you will only be successful if you lead the way and take some ‘risks,’ even if they really aren’t!”
Between IP licensing facilitated by Technology Reserve and IPXI, and litigation avoidance and other offerings from Article One, IP managers can forge ahead with bold new strategies that will be better for their companies and better for IP overall.