The particular Intellectual Property Audit - Finding What You Have

One particular traditional definition of an intellectual piermont grand ec audit is "a cataloging of a organization's intellectual property assets. " It will be required for an organization to meet its due-diligence requirements for mergers, acquisitions, or other transfers. Today, organizations see a strong intellectual property audit not only as a balance sheet pertaining to intangible assets but also, more importantly, as a self-evaluation that the group constantly and consistently engages in to determine the value of its own assets, determine how to best capitalize on those sources, and keep abreast of the changing values of the nation's assets in the face of the ever-changing economic and legal ecosphere.

Who Should Conduct an Intellectual Property Audit?

"Intellectual property audit" is perhaps something of a misnomer. It indicates the audit is a mere counting up of assets, as well as person conducting the audit merely adds up the rational property found in the organization and reports the value. Nothing could possibly be further from the truth. An intellectual property audit is usually an inherently legal undertaking, and should therefore be performed because of a team consisting of at least an attorney with expertise in the legal requirement of intellectual property, either in-house or outside endorse, or by the in-house personnel of the organization, if they experience sufficient knowledge of the organization's intellectual property to perform those actions required for an intellectual property audit of the organization. A strong intellectual property audit is not an accounting function. Typically the intellectual property audit is an assessment of the legal popularity and value of an organization's intellectual property, especially aimed towards those areas where the marketing and management goals belonging to the organization and the existing protection of the organization's intellectual premises are somehow not well suited to each other. The attorney or possibly attorneys and other team members (the team might consist of the particular intellectual property attorney and at least one representative from every single management, marketing and technology areas; because of the inherent legalised significance of the intellectual property audit, at least one member of typically the team must be an intellectual property attorney) selected to accomplish the audit should therefore have some expertise with the company's technology, the marketing and management goals of the firm, and have some familiarity with what is involved in intellectual property safety: prosecution of the registration application, maintenance of the property, and also on through defense of the intellectual property through a law suit and the appellate process.

When to Conduct an Intellectual Property Audit

When should an organization consider conducting the intellectual property audit? Attorney Leslie J. Lott seems to have identified several appropriate times in the life of an enterprise for intellectual property audits; in this subsection, I receive heavily from her listing and commentary.

New Intelligent Property Management

If the organization has new intellectual home management, the new intellectual property manager should have a thorough mental property audit performed to become familiar with the status from the portfolio.

Merger, Acquisition, Significant Stock Purchase

A significant collaborative change (merger, acquisition, significant stock purchase) can impact perceptive property ownership; this is another signal for an intellectual residence audit.

Transfer or Assignment of Interest in Intellectual Place

A transfer or assignment of intellectual property collected from one of organization to another calls for an intellectual property audit in both organizations' intellectual property. Here, the intellectual real estate audit allows the organizations to be sure the transfer and / or assignment meets the interests of both by making sure the intellectual property is properly protected and adds something to the acquiring organization's existing intellectual property interests, and also the intellectual property does not leave any unplanned vulnerabilities for the organization transferring the interests.

Licensing Program

The intellectual property audit should be performed when an organization creates an intellectual property license or licensing program, plus on a regular basis thereafter. This is important whether the organization is the licensor or the licensee.

If the organization licenses its intellectual property to others, it must of course actually personally own the intellectual property that it is licensing. Also, there must be basically no existing licenses that would interfere with the proposed new permit.
If the organization is the licensee, obtaining the intellectual property liberties of another, the audit determines that the scope as well as extent of the license to be obtained is adequate now for the purposes.

Significant Change in Law

A significant change should or statutory law may require an organization to re-evaluate the intellectual property.
One such change in statutory law manifested when Congress passed the federal anti-dilution statute. The change in the law significantly impacts the analysis of your potential liability of an organization for infringement of the logos of others and also affects the analysis of if others are infringing the organization's rights.

Four degrees of case law which arouse the need for an intellectual building audit are the Qualitex case (which deals with the insurance of color as a trademark), the Sony case (which deals with the question of whether a device that can be used just for copyright infringement is itself an infringement of copyright), the Festo case (which deals with the Doctrine regarding Equivalents in patent prosecution), and the KSR case (which deals with the concept of obviousness in patent law).

Financial Ventures Involving Intellectual Property

Financial transactions involving intellectual place might include loans, public offerings, private placements, or perhaps any other transaction which directly involves an organization's intelligent property, or in which the intellectual property of the organization will be or could be significant.

New Client Program or Insurance

An organization should conduct an intellectual property audit connected with new programs or policies, such as an aggressive forex filing program, new marketing approach or direction, dominion of a product line or services, corporate reorganization, or almost every other corporate change that could affect the interaction between the corporation's intellectual property and the marketplace.