You’re mistaken if you think great ideas automatically become valuable IPs. Without a structured system, they get lost, delayed, or tangled in legal battles.
A recent case highlights these risks: In 2023, Edwards Lifesciences sued Meril Life Sciences at the Unified Patent Court (UPC) for patent infringement related to transcatheter heart valves.
In 2024, the UPC ruled that Meril’s Myval Octacor heart valves infringed Edwards’ patent, leading to an immediate sales ban across UPC territories. Despite counterclaims and a revocation attempt, Meril couldn’t prevent the ruling.
While disclosure management systems aren’t enough to prevent litigation, a structured system for tracking, assessing, and securing IP rights early could have helped Meril prepare stronger legal defenses, and reduce infringement risks.
Let’s break down how to build a disclosure system to safeguard your IP and maximize its value.
How Innovation Drives Success in Today’s Businesses
Take Unilever, with its portfolio of over 20,000 patents: Since 2019, the company has reduced virgin plastic use by 18% through innovative packaging solutions and is on track for a 30% reduction by 2026.
Similarly, the automotive industry is undergoing rapid transformation with advancements in electric vehicles. For example, Tesla filed more than 200 patents in battery technology and management in the last five years.
This highlights how forward-thinking strategies are reshaping industries globally.
However, if you struggle to track and manage your innovations effectively, you’re not alone!
Brainstorming ideas with AI makes ideation easier, but without a structured system, valuable insights are unnoticed.
That’s where InspireIP’s suite of tools comes in. Idea Assist helps you to brainstorm and evaluate ideas.
Once an idea is ready for disclosure, you can track, evaluate, and protect innovations throughout their lifecycle using IP Assist.
- Comprehensive Disclosure Forms: Standardize and streamline IP submissions.
- Prior Art Search Integration: Check patentability early.
- Docketing System Integration: Keep track of filings
With the right tools, you can turn ideas into patents and drive real business impact.
Key Challenges in Innovation Management for Growing Companies
As your company grows, are your processes becoming fragmented?
Struggling to get a clear view of your innovation pipeline?
Scaling innovation comes with hurdles, often leading to inefficient disclosure management. Here are three major challenges that fast-growing companies face:
1. Inability to Scale Innovation Management
Generating more ideas is great, but be mindful: a scattered disclosure process can slow progress, while gaps in visibility can delay filings and put your IP at risk. This makes it harder to scale innovation effectively.
But you still want to track inventions properly, right? Disorganized disclosures can lead to missed filing deadlines and weak patent claims.
Without a structured process, valuable innovations might slip through the cracks, making it harder to secure a strong IP position.
The challenge is that large firms only use about 59% of their patents, while small firms use 80%. This is because big companies file patents strategically and for future licensing, whereas startups rely on patents to protect and commercialize their innovations actively.
Regardless of company size, an unstructured innovation pipeline is inefficient. You need a centralized system to streamline disclosures and ensure timely patent filings.
2. Increased Risk of IP Infringement
Startups and businesses that fail to manage and protect their IP effectively increase their exposure to the risk of infringement. With intensive global patent filings, particularly in key technology areas such as computer technology, digital communication, and medical technology, the potential for overlapping innovations is increasing.
According to WIPO 2024 statistics:
- China was the leading applicant in computer technology, filing nearly 14% of all applications, closely followed by the US with just under 14%.
- Germany led in transport-related patents, filing nearly 12% of all applications between 2020 and 2022.
As competition escalates in high-tech fields, startups with inadequate IP management are more likely to infringe on existing patents unknowingly or have their innovations used by others without compensation.
3. Failure to Leverage Knowledge as a Competitive Advantage
Is valuable knowledge and critical insights siloed within teams? Is your innovation pipeline lost in fragmented workflows?
Without a disclosure management system, you may be overlooking patentable inventions. Without an IP management system, you may be missing opportunities to leverage your patents for market advantage.
Intellectual capital, which includes employees’ know-how, competencies, and tacit knowledge, is one of an organization’s most valuable intangible assets.
Knowledge creation assets, such as experiential, conceptual, routine, and systemic knowledge are indispensable resources for creating value and achieving a sustainable competitive advantage.
However, organizations struggle to effectively identify, evaluate, and manage these assets due to their intangible and tacit nature, leading to wasted innovation potential. A robust management disclosure system can capture intellectual capital and allow you to analyze, interpret, and leverage it for maximum return.
To overcome the challenges of effectively managing intellectual capital, you need advanced solutions that streamline the process from idea generation and implementation to patent filing.
For example, InspireIP’s IP Assist helps you systematically track and analyze patentable inventions, ensuring your IP drives innovation and strengthens your market position.
Manage Innovation from Concept to Implementation
Manage innovation with a robust idea and innovation management system.
- Customizable 3-4 Step Workflow: Simplify your innovation process with a custom step-by-step workflow. This allows you to quickly validate and execute ideas. Align it with your unique processes, from concept to implementation.
- AI-Powered Brainstorming: Filter through vast amounts of data, spot trends, and generate innovative ideas faster with AI-driven support.
- Real-Time Collaboration: Collaborate across teams on the platform with real-time updates. Keep stakeholders informed with automated notifications, ensuring transparency.
- Flexible Routing and Evaluation Criteria: Tailor evaluation criteria and routing paths to meet your goals. Assign stakeholders to ensure every idea is evaluated effectively.
- Invention Disclosure Management: Standardize and streamline invention disclosures to ensure valuable IP is captured and reviewed efficiently.
- Integrated Prior Art Search: Leverage AI-powered prior art search tools to assess novelty before filing, reducing redundant applications.
- Collaboration with Legal and IP Teams: Work directly with internal review committees, patent attorneys, and external counsels to ensure well-documented, high-quality filings.
- Full-Scale IP System Integration: Connect with major docketing and IP management systems to transition from disclosure to patent filing and portfolio management.
With InpsireIP, a leading consumer product company improved its innovation process. Previously, disclosures were random. Now, 43% are focused on key technologies and business priorities.
Also, if you need a flexible, customizable workflow, and a scalable solution, InspireIP adapts to your organization’s unique needs and requirements, and promises:
- Intuitive interface
- Easy implementation
- Clear process visibility
- Real-time status updates
- Seamless user experience
- Audit-ready documentation
- Automated disclosure tracking
- Customizable approval workflows
Ending Note
Innovation requires robust systems to nurture ideas into tangible outcomes. An effective management disclosure system ensures that every innovation aligns with your business objectives.
By streamlining processes, improving collaboration, and enabling transparency, you can maximize intellectual assets.
Simplifying the path from concept to implementation empowers teams to innovate confidently. This enhances internal efficiencies and strengthens external partnerships, especially with patent attorneys and law firms, by providing organized, actionable disclosures.
Take your innovation strategy to the next level with InspireIP. Schedule a demo today.
