Special Issue In Cooperation With The European Patent Office

High-growth technology businesses are typically small-and medium-sized enterprises and startups that succeed in bringing innovation, employment and productivity into traditional and new industry sectors. These small enterprises are a major driver of Europe’s economic growth and a key to addressing its current challenges, from digital transformation to health and sustainable development. Patents and other intellectual property rights help them to foster innovative solutions by encouraging and rewarding investment in new products and services.

The potential value of technology and intellectual property (IP) assets can be fully realized only if it is accompanied by a people-centric perspective. For an efficient intellectual asset management of technology, a number of key players inside and outside an organization must be considered, as well as cultural factors. To achieve ultimate success, the views and roles of business decision-makers and IP managers must support and complement each other in an integrated, IP-driven environment throughout all phases of the intellectual asset (IA) value chain.

Decision-makers in technology companies who embark on a high-growth strategy for their company will likely engage in one or more of the following five strategic transaction types to optimize shareholder value: alliances, licensing, spin-offs, acquisitions and divestments.

Patent disputes present specific issues for SMEs. This is true regardless of whether the SME is a patent owner who wishes to assert a patent or a defendant who is sued for patent infringement and wishes to invalidate a patent. Litigation tactics for SMEs can vary depending on the motivation of the opponent, to what industry sector the parties belong, whether litigation costs and fees must be borne by the losing party in the jurisdiction where the dispute takes place, and what the value of the dispute is. All these specific issues are dealt with in greater detail here, summarising 30 years of practical experience with SMEs at various courts in Europe and the United States.

Technology start-ups are key drivers of innovation. However, patents are often not their priority, especially in Europe. Key reasons for this are their strong focus on rather short-term objectives like winning paying customers and raising money from investors. Other complicating factors are the very divergent time-frames involved in the patent business and in growing a technology start-up with its regular strategy adjustments (pivots).

Intellectual property has a powerful impact on growth for technology start-ups that integrate it into their business model evolution. Orcan Energy AG is a great example for the role that IP played in the dynamic growth of an innovator in generating power from waste heat when creating a joint venture to access the Asian markets.

University technology start-up companies have the advantage of kick-starting their business with valuable intellectual property assets, a privilege very few start-ups have. In all other aspects, university start-ups are faced with the same challenges any start-up would have, and probably have the additional disadvantage that very few professors are born business experts.

Growing technology convergence and speed to market drives the need for a broader set of accessible technologies and IP. This creates market opportunities for increased technology collaboration, as some firms and organizations can find expanded uses for their existing technology portfolios (i.e., technology push), whereas other firms look to resolve innovation gaps from sources outside of their own in-house operations (i.e., technology or market pull). Firms need to generate a sophisticated understanding of their future innovation needs based on an integrated approach that combines business, technology and IP strategy. All technology driven firms are pushed to move from a closed to an open approach to innovation to remain competitive. To succeed, they need to consider all possible sources of innovation, both for development and commercialization. Fundamentally, open innovation is a strategic IP management approach that needs to be governed explicitly, not implicitly.

The Stage-Gate1 Model is a widely used method for structuring the innovation process into defined phases, separated by distinctive gates. However, in its "classical" form, the model typically does not include any aspects of Intellectual Property (IP) as part of the process. Since a thorough IP process is needed for any successful innovation project, key elements of the IP protection have been integrated into the "classical" Stage-Gate Model. The company Transitions Optical is using such a well-developed new model and provides an effective case study for this process.

Market facilitators play an important role in facilitating IP (intellectual property) transfers. This article reviews the advantages and limitations of the different types of market facilitators and provides guidance on how and when to involve them.

Best practices and expert insights from social media are combined to shed more light on the needs of licensees or buyers to improve technology offers and the marketing approaches of licensors and sellers to foster technology transfer.

Small and medium-sized technology-driven enterprises are important to the European economy and patents are important to them as a means of securing sustainable high growth. A recent survey investigated how small and medium-sized enterprises filing European patents succeed in commercializing those of their inventions with the highest business potential. These technologies usually find their way to the market, frequently involving partnerships in Europe and beyond. However, some challenges still persist for SMEs wishing to commercialize their technology, including difficulties finding partners and managing complex negotiations. These challenges need to be addressed. Sharing good practices, knowledge, and expertise in IP management and IP strategy can help, as can access to networking platforms.

Cooperations in which know-how and resources are synergistically combined increase the chances for effective commercialization of new technologies in international markets. Negotiations are necessary for partnering and are a kind of collaborative problem solving. This requires soft and hard skills, as well as proper preparation. Mock negotiations are a praxis proven way to train and empower both aspiring and experienced negotiators. LESI and the European Patent Office (EPO) have jointly developed an advanced training format combining training on IP strategy and IP management with a three party negotiation case study about innovation management and patent transactions. Participants join negotiation teams and, in a "safe" environment, apply what they have learned and hence advance their soft skills. The three-party negotiation is about marketing a medical technology with an Industry 4.0 ICU console that requires a combined approach of IP, AI, GDPR, telemedicine, block chain, control of big data, patient specific customized therapy, re-use of consumables and many more current aspects.

Conferences are a very traditional way to stay up to date in a certain field or industry, but are less popular for smaller and younger enterprises and their management. The huge success of the High-Growth Technology Business Conference 2019, organized by LESI and the EPO, was based on an extensive re-engineering of how conferences ought to be delivered. The key goals of the re-engineering were inclusion (attract IP professionals as well as high-growth business decision makers), efficiency (minimize the time at a conference but maximize the outcome), learning (provide original content from top speakers and trainers), implementation (ensure learnings can be applied in the organizations of participants) and networking (enable networking also for those not so networking savvy).