Traditionally, IP (Intellectual Property) has often been associated with the protection of technology through intellectual property rights, such as patents. This perception has changed radically for many industries but also society as a whole in recent decades, not the least with the emergence of the knowledge-based and innovation-driven economies.
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Employing predominantly a problem-driven research approach, building on engineering research principles, we are committed to contributing to developing the future of effective IP and innovation management. As part of the Centre for Technology Management, the IIPM lab takes an engineering management (firm level) and relational perspective on IP within distributed and collaborative (open) innovation processes for emerging (manufacturing) technologies.
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With the aim to contribute to sustainability transitions, the Innovation and IP Management (IIPM) Lab focuses two priority areas:
1. Strategic IP management for effective innovation processes
We focus on IP issues that are of strategic relevance for technology-based firms, e.g. within R&D activities, innovation processes but also in corporate strategy and decision making. Our research focuses on IP management in the context of emerging technologies, particularly those addressing global challenges, such as Climate Change Mitigation Technologies (CCMT). As part of our research we seek to develop practical tools for the strategic management of IP.
2. New technologies for reinventing IP management
Technologies underpinning IP management have changed drastically during recent decades with patent data being digitized and the continuous development of increasingly sophisticated software solutions for analyzing and visualizing IP data. We, however, believe that this has just been the beginning and we are at a tipping point for how IP will be managed. Technologies such as AI, deep and machine learning have been adopted in other domains already to a much more sophisticated level than for IP analytics. Technologies, such as Blockchain (and distributed ledger technologies) may contribute to digitization of licensing transactions and the automation of complex royalty payment streams. Our research seeks to understand better the use cases for those and other technologies and contribute to the development of solutions that help “reinventing” IP management.