How Publicly Funded Research Organizations Have Managed Intellectual Property - Essay Example

Intellectual Property    Introduction The greatest threats and opportunities to these day’s business managers derive from protecting and harnessing the control of corporate knowledge and the resultant intellectual property. In terms of definition, the word intellectual property refers to distinctive value adding creations of human being intellect resulting from human creativity, ingenuity, and inventiveness. Unquestionably, intellectual property is a powerful tool essential for economic development. Whilst intellectual property is not a service or product itself, it is the initiative behind a service or offering. In that sense, intellectual property is the manner a procedure, idea or business theory is expressed, and the unique way it is described and named. When it comes to the topic of intellectual property, on the other hand, nearly all organizations still think of it in terms of lawful definitions, copyrights, trade, patents, and trade secrets. Building on the above point of view, this paper critically examines management of intellectual property in publicly funded research organizations. The basis of the analysis is to assess the way intellectual property has been managed in the past and suggest improvements for the future. How Publicly Funded Research Organizations have Managed Intellectual Property We start by challenging the long-established description of intellectual property as being secluded to elements such as trademarks, patents, and copyrights. Building on this point of view, it is worth noting that publicly funded organizations have been taking a purely self-protective approach and administer intellectual property exclusively as a function of the lawful or engineering units. One of the greatest significance of intellectual property is to make it possible for publicly funded organizations to raise the resources such as money, which they require in order to grow (MacDonald & Capart, 2004). Reflecting on this perception, this section examines how publicly funded organizations have managed intellectual property through revenue generation, financial leverage, strategic alliances, and competitive advantage accordingly. With reference to research, it is evident that publicly funded organizations manage their intellectual property through revenue collection. Just like all assets, intellectual property is leveraged with the intention to generate earnings. Noteworthy, a higher rate of depreciation is usually expected to occur whenever it goes without being used (MacDonald & Capart, 2004, p. 9). The ownership of a patent portfolio, for instance, is not an assurance of victory. Typically, publicly funded organizations use only 10-15 percentages of patent portfolios. This is one way through which such organizations manage intellectual property towards realizing their long term goals and objectives. From a literal point of view, it is agreeable that small businesses and individuals generate the most inventive intellectual property. However, it astonishing the way such intellectual property goes into waste, given that such owners do not have the required capital obligatory to take full benefit of it. Based on this standpoint, it is worth contemplating that publicly funded organizations have the necessary capital essential to take the full benefit of the generated intellectual property. This explains another means through which publicly funded organizations have been managing intellectual property. Over the years, publicly funded organizations have been forging alliances with other organizations. The reason behind forging alliances is to intensify the value of their intellectual property and to acquire equally beneficial competitive benefits in the long run. Undeniably, publicly funded organizations have repeatedly been implementing strategic positioning of intellectual property so as to enhance returns through advanced deployment of market intelligence, joint ventures, mergers, and acquisitions. Publicly funded organizations manage intellectual property in various ways. Despite this perception, it is worth contemplating that the basic lifecycle of intellectual property take account of the main phases of creating, storing, accessing and commercializing (MacDonald & Capart, 2004). Noteworthy, this is a fact whether the intellectual property in query is documented and copyrighted or if at all it simply exists in the brains of the creators. Managing intellectual property in publicly funded organizations revolves around the following steps: Create store Access Commercialize People Processes Artifacts Reflecting on the above sketch, it is worth noting that the general view of managing intellectual property in publicly funded research organizations as a legal concern captures a sections of all the people, processes, and artifacts. Noteworthy, the creation procedure has a tendency to be the least prearranged unit comprising of more than a few people. The creation of the intellectual property is followed by storage. In essence, intellectual property, once created must be stored in an individual’s mind or on a computer network someplace with varying degrees of certification. Once stored, there are always formal processes available and in place for the person who gets access and through which means (MacDonald & Capart, 2004). Generally, it is between the process of creation and process of commercialization phase that officially permitted counsel gets involved in order to determine the ability and need to look for lawful protection. In order to fully understand how publicly funded research organizations manage intellectual property, it is worth examining who manages intellectual property accordingly. Intellectual assets do not generate, run or add force to the whole practice. In its place, people are involved at each phase in the registration, development, exploitation and maintenance of intellectual property assets. Bearing in mind that publicly funded research organizations consider intellectual property to be inaccessible to those production elements for instance, trademarks and patents, it is classically administered as a function of the legal department. Whenever an organization’s intellectual property is challenged in any way, all segments of the organization becomes involved in the protection (MacDonald & Capart, 2004, p, 12). Stemming from accounting to marketing to human resources and product development, the organization is usually expected to generate a chain of confirmation to document the formation of the intellectual property Everything has its peculiar take-off, and so the same thing with innovative intellectual property. Going by political or even financial terms, it shall be noted that the overall idea towards intellectual property and innovative finance and its overall mechanisms must have sprung somewhere in the European Continent, and especially in Rome. The initial approach was in coming up with the so-called Global Fund, which would later be reformed towards the creation of present day innovative financing (MacDonald & Capart, 2004). After very many studies, it was noted that the traditional ways of funding failed specific operations and missions when they were not expected to do. This brought greater concerns and a desire in coming up with a better approach of accruing funds which would result in economic growth. As days went by, the issue of poverty and trends of its reduction became eminent after the existing mechanisms and strategies failed to give good responses. From a number of competent analyses, it was found to be doubtful that all the existing forms of traditional financing could not effectively meet the demands of specific operations like global health, and at the very time failing to show better responses to the other legitimate demands and needs with the other areas like with issues of climate change and the environmental issues. This traditional form of finance also showed slowed responsiveness towards issues such as education and overall poverty reduction. Such a situation was thus not to be exacerbated by almost all the issues and constrains that had been felt within the economic status, and later by the current economic crisis. This led to downward pressed pressures towards assistance for development in terms of budgets with the rich nations feeling the effects of economic breakdown. This led to shortened public revenues thus making different nations to come up with ideas through which the low-income nations could be helped (MacDonald & Capart, 2004, p. 19). This would be the rightful approach towards the take-off for innovative finance. Having come up with this new approach, it shall be noted that it was the rightful approach which presented the right picture towards overall development picture and especially with intellectual property. This has thus been able to come up with particular financing trends which have been noted to be very effective. The first responsiveness towards tackling all the earlier faced shortcomings was to come up with a number of innovative strategies and approaches which could bring greater changes within short periods of time. As we have noted earlier, intellectual property comes in with the right picture which is capable of enhancing overall development. This is because it brings about better coordination and operations which ensure that all issues within a given concern like global health care are addressed. Basically, the entire approach entails coming up with strategies through which funds will be availed for specific operations (MacDonald & Capart, 2004). Once these funds have been availed, it becomes possible to address all the issues which are faced with global healthcare thus making it easier to realize overall development. With innovative finance, there are a number of procedures and structures which have been applied in financing. The first approach towards financing is through the adoption of long-term mechanisms of laying out pledges from the richer governments towards collateralizing the commercial debts. Another approach is the AMC, Advance Market Commitment, through which a number of nations have been bonded to a commitment towards paying a number of funds to pay healthcare. Currency Transaction Levy, CTL has also been adopted as a strategy towards funding for innovation towards healthcare and other global issues. Basically, there are a number of globally re known funding approaches like the Solidarity Air Ticket Levy which is a form of tax levied on all airline tickets. Other organizations have also been required to be giving a given portion of their profits and overall incomes as a way of promoting innovative finances for healthcare. Debt negotiations have also been applied in ensuring that some debts have been forgone for a smooth kick-off towards innovative financing for healthcare in the entire globe (MacDonald & Capart, 2004). Another important approach towards funding has been through the appreciation of voluntary payments and contributions which is done during travel and with tourism funds and products, which have been collected by the global Millennium Foundation. There have also been a number of adoptions which can be made by different persons or even organizations towards funding global issues like health. All these accrued funds have been aimed for specific missions towards realization of global goals hence making the world a better place. Suggested Improvements for the Future There are several suggestions, which can be implemented towards achievements better improvements in the future in terms of business production. One of the major policy suggestions of these organizations is the implementation of the innovation model. This model should be promoted as the most successful means to generate both social and economic advantages at European level from publicly funded research outcomes. General mistake different organizations such as the publicly funded research organizations make it attempting to consume the elephant at the same time. In one way or the other, this results in an extended time to benefit, and in that sense a decline in eagerness and a lack of accomplishment. Based on these findings, there is the need for the effort to have transitional milestones that demonstrate value and progress so as to keep the force going strong (MacDonald & Capart, 2004, p. 29). Establishing attainable project milestones will allow such organizations to progressively attain their goal through a sequence of wins more willingly than attempting to run a long-drawn-out with the lack of suitable experience and conditioning. A logical place to begin is with a review of the current intellectual property practices and a classification of all sectors of organizations that possess intellectual property to leverage and protect. This will always result to a clearer indulgent of the distributed nature of such assets and the familiarity with a better understanding with which they will be put into storage for later maintenance. Once the developed companies have gone ahead with their dreams, there would be an increased disparity, and hence more and more differences and dominion would continue being seen in the world. Therefore, it would be something good that the approach to this kind of future technological integration in terms of intellectual property is done in a manner in which all the entire globe is given the necessary consideration. In addition, to equip companies with the necessary growth towards this infusion of technology would be something expensive for the small and private companies and the reason it should be taken as a global agenda if the dream would be realized and bring the greatest happiness to the greatest majority in the world (MacDonald & Capart, 2004). This would improve production performance in the entire world and see all the people being in a position of accessing better products and services. This would bring new incentives through which the greatest gains can be achieved from intellectual property. The status of different economies shall be improved accordingly, and the entire globe would be geared towards the realization of its goals. This would eventually result in better living conditions for humanity. Organizational change is very significant for any business organization. In a business, organizational change is always widely debated and discussed. This is because it determines the performance and realization of goals. Through the above analysis, one can conclude that publicly funded research organizations have faced employees and management problems, largely occurring from the way of dealing with intellectual property. The management of the human aspect in such organizations is usually hard because different individuals have different expectations and requirements form the company (MacDonald & Capart, 2004). To make sure organizational change is managed in terms of intellectual property appropriately; the organizations should launch what is called ‘Forward-Looking’ statements to make sure the right channels are followed towards improvement of business performance. From one season to another, a new change in the organizational practice has always been proposed but this has become very hard to achieve. The management team in this company has been applying a different leadership approach thereby making it hard to eventually promote business performance. Although every aspect that needs to be resolved is addressed to ensure the business is aligned to the present requirements of the intellectual property, the business strategy and expectations of the consumers, the company has not been able to address this issue of organizational change (MacDonald & Capart, 2004, p. 38). It should be observed that all the above strategic issues have been a major barrier towards realization of the organization’s goals. In terms of overview, innovative financing is an approach that can do miracles towards the development of a given nation or society and which involved funding from governments and other donors. With this kind of funding, it should be realized that the governments are the ones required to play the greatest role here. It is very true that there are very many ways through which excellent innovative approaches can be realized of giving aids. With innovative funding, the word innovative comes into play, meaning that it is necessary to come up with the rightful approaches through which the funding to a given project or agenda is proliferated (MacDonald & Capart, 2004, p. 42). This has been done appropriately by encouraging Non-Governmental Organizations in different parts of the world. Towards better innovative funding, it is very necessary that there are a wide number of sponsors and donors. There should as well be means through which there are larger increments on aids, although this has to be done in a competent manner which will not in any manner distort the rational means and procedures that have been put in place towards making decisions for taxations and overall spending.  Currently, majority of the developments have been advocating for support schemes which demonstrate effective tax transactions towards financing. Another approach which can be purely innovative is through the use of modern technology to promote intellectual property. There can also be a new kind of lottery done globally so as to increase financial assistance and collections (MacDonald & Capart, 2004, p. 51). However, experts argue that any innovative kind of funding should never in any manner come up with opportunistic expectations, but should come out diligently towards ensuring that possible procedures and strategies have been adopted which are capable of getting the rightful amounts of funds towards the specific funding. This is why this approach would possibly work miracles for global healthcare in the field of business. Conclusion As a point of conclusion, it is quite clear that organizations should put more emphasis on a broad range of business activities in order to remain productive, competitive, and reinforce their share in a given market. With many companies functioning more competently and thereby freeing more competence for knowledge based operations, the query becomes one of how companies can function more strategically. Possibly the most significant strategic inventiveness an organization should get on is to pull intellectual property and corporate knowledge. In essence, managing corporate knowledge and intellectual property assets is part of organization most excellent practices. Speed necessitates that organizations should be in position to leverage the above ideas through more competent and proactive practices and tools. Research has it clear that innovation varies from invention. In definition, innovation is a procedure, which starts from the formation of a thought to the launching of a fresh product or process for marketing. Intellectual property rights should be utilized successfully in order to facilitate winning innovation. Innovative technologies form a point of reference from where an organization acquires a good chance to productively attain the market share, especially when intellectual property is employed strategically. Intellectual property plays a significant role is securely offering access to technical and financial facilities. Conclusively, intellectual property offers a strong negotiation position in terms of entering into and maintaining business partnerships. Bibliography MacDonald, L. & Capart, G. 2004 Management of intellectual property in publicly- funded research organizations: Towards European Guidelines. Community Research, 12.2;3-60. Read More