MIT Sloan Management Review

 

About the Research

This article presents findings of a research study on the managerial use of IP rights that was conducted at the Copenhagen Business School between 2003 and 2005. For 34 major companies (many of them leaders in their markets), primary data on the strategic use of IP rights, organizational structures and the companies’ industry environments were collected in a detailed questionnaire surveying senior corporate representatives responsible for IP matters. The senior representatives were identified using a standardized competence checklist that spoke to the respondents’ authority to shape the companies’ IP-related actions, change its IP-related organizational structure, decide on the IP budget and evaluate its IP performance. Most of our respondents had an engineering (38%) or scientific (41%) background, and some had additional qualifications, such as training as patent attorneys (65%). The corporations that were invited to participate in the survey employed a minimum staff of 250 (except for Internet publishing and broadcasting companies) and belonged to an industry where IP rights such as patents, trademarks and designs were suspected to be an important commercial success factor. Industries represented included basic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, radio and television broadcasting, wireless communications equipment manufacturing, audio and video equipment manufacturing, semiconductor and related device manufacturing, household consumer products manufacturing and medical instruments. To capture the importance of copyrights, some companies from the so-called new digital industries, such as software publishing,... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.