Managing Intellectual Property

Hundreds of documents and thousands of e-mails (not

counting spam) in a day flow into your enterprise's file and messaging

servers. In addition, there are those transactions that may never get recorded

in printable format files-those that happen over voice and instant messengers.

All this data is information to the enterprise and ultimately IP (intellectual

property). Much of it needs to be secured away from prying eyes and somehow

needs to be instantly available when needed. Based on several factors, you would

back up this information for a period of time and then destroy it safely. In

this article, we will open  Pandora's box of IP management and examine

the aspects that govern what you should keep, what you must destroy and how long

you should protect information, along with how to get stored information back

when you require it.

KMS vs DMS



It is likely that you have some sort of KMS (Knowledge Management System)

deployed in your enterprise. At the basic level, it would be your Intranet, and

at an advanced  level  it would be a DMS (Document Management System).

However, even your DMS isn't a full-fledged KMS, since a lot of information

would still be out of its purview, for example your e-mail as we said above. All

of this information centers on the knowledge that your enterprise is creating or

getting access to. Some of this is created internally, while some may come from

(and be owned) by external sources. And all of this is essentially part of your

IP. A typical DMS would not handle all your IP- at the most, it would manage

documents that have been scanned or fed into the system or created inside it and

the communications and notations as entered with the DMS interface. It would

not, for instance, include the idea notations in a plain text file jotted on the

desktop of your marketing manager.

Identify your IP



The first step in managing your IP is of course to know that you have it in

your possession and what exactly it is that you possess. Frequent auditing of

your knowledge base to glean what diamonds are there in it and then ascribing a

commercial value to it, will



certainly help manage that IP a lot better.

The value of that IP would be two fold: one, it would be

the value of commercializing that IP in the form of a product or a service (if

it is possible). And two, its value if lost, especially to competition. Many

enterprises suffer from the fact that they do not realize what intellectual

property they own and how much it is worth (today and a few years down the

line).

The enterprise, therefore, should have a clear intellectual

property policy, demarcating the lines of contribution and development. Also, IP

should form a part of the employment contract, with the employee agreeing to

sign the requisite IP filing forms. IP could be used as a tremendous motivation

tool with the 'authors' being credited in IP filings.

Guarding your IP



You can guard it better only once you have ascribed a value to it (as we

said above). Since most 'IP' that gets into the 'lets guard this with our

lives' category is of the internal kind, it can only be stolen from the

inside. This means someone in the organization is in violation of his or her

employment contract. Today, IP can be stolen or leaked in a variety of ways,

some of which may even actually be inadvertent. Consider the following

scenarios.

Carelessness:  It could accidentally be mailed

over to an incorrect recipient. Or, if the user is also a member of public

provider services (like e-mail or instant messaging) then problems with that

third party network and systems can accidentally put your IP out on the Internet

for everyone to see and use. It could also be



left behind on USB drives lent to colleagues or friends that are then spotted

and copied out. The way out in both cases is of course



automatic digital encryption of the data during transfer so that only intended

recipients with a valid decrypting key can actually read it.

Willful transfer: Here, an employee with access to

privileged information can transfer the data (by e-mail or in hard copy or in a

variety of formats) to the outside world or to someone who is not authorized to

see it. This would of course constitute willful theft of that IP.

IP theft would first and foremost be a breach of contract.

Further, a well-maintained logbook would ensure that all IP is documented and

its subsequent transfer understood at all levels within organizational

hierarchy. Therefore, periodic auditing of who has accessed what IP can quickly

reveal the (including potential) leaks. This can be done easily with a chain of

custody sign-off forms, where people handling that IP sign off on a log sheet.

IP and



India



The Indian environment is such that people sit up and take notice only once

something bad happens to them or to someone else in the industry, who is a close

enough competitor. For instance, the idea that someone as high up in the ladder

as the CIO or the CTO could be liable for information entered by a user on the

company's store Web front only came to light in the aftermath of the Bazee.com

scandal. CxOs through the Indian business establishment did a hurried audit of

what exactly lay on their servers that they might have to go to jail for. In the

international community, laws like the Sarb-Ox (US) and the Data Protection Act

(UK) seek to ensure a level of compliance with regard to what companies do with

the data they gather and how they gather it. They also subject it to privacy

laws. In



India



, obviously, this has a long way to go. IP is not even recognized by the Indian

IT Act as a relevant topic (as knowledge handled by the IT infrastructure). It

is covered under the Patents Act, Trademarks Act, Copyright Act and Designs Act.

Confidential information and trade secrets are covered under the Contract Act.

With the ever-growing scrutiny faced by corporate directors

in the wake of recent corporate scandals and government policing, there is an

increasing importance for company directors to oversee intellectual-property

assets more closely than ever before. Intellectual property is ubiquitous in

almost all business sectors. Intellectual property procurement and enforcement

are becoming more and more important to most businesses, and the costs

attributable to intellectual property procurement as well as intellectual

property law suits are growing based on outside counsel costs, time, as well as

the number of suits filed. Furthermore, there are substantial increases in

settlements and judgments in intellectual property litigation. These factors

alone suggest that company directors should maintain intellectual property

oversight. The situation will become stricter and the regime more stringent in

the years to come.

Note: PCQuest does not offer legal advice. The

material presented above should not be construed as legal advice. You are

encouraged to consult your legal counsel before taking any action on this

subject.

Sujay V Sarma