Why create an innovation program?
Over the last 20 years as intellectual property professionals, we have repeatedly observed operational issues associated with the innovation initiatives of our business partners from IP law. These issues stem from the perception that innovation is a revelation, as opposed to a process that can be implemented and learned. These operational issues are typically derived from one or more of the following business oversights:
STRATEGY
Many businesses fail to memorialize a complete innovation protection strategy, which leads to missed opportunities for protection and ineffective allocation of their innovation budget.
IMPLEMENTATION
Most businesses have a very granular development process for product development such as a Stage-Gate. However, only few organizations incorporate safeguards and expansion strategies for innovation into their development processes. This lack of integration leads to the loss of protection for innovative ideas.
IDENTIFICATION
Since only legal teams are typically responsible for identifying innovative ideas that can be protected, other business teams such as R&D, engineering, and marketing miss valuable opportunities with protectable innovations due to lack of knowledge and workflow disconnect.
ANALYTICS
Many businesses and business groups are unaware of the robust innovation analytics available for stimulating innovation, broadening innovation protections, and helping to solve development issues. Innovation without analytics can lead to weak protection for innovation, lost protection opportunities, missed business partnerships, and clearance issues at launch.
PROCESSES
Internal legal and innovation teams are typically inundated with communications, tasks, and deadlines associated with obtaining intellectual property protection. This can lead to arduous administrative efforts resulting in ineffective processes and overlapping workflows that hinder creativity and innovation while impacting productivity.
Based on our experience, we have developed several business-focused innovation training programs. We developed these innovation programs from our unique experiences as private-practice intellectual property lawyers, members of corporate innovation teams, in-house chief IP counsels, innovators, and patent holders on our own inventions, business owners, and through our role in academia. In short, we have walked the walk with all aspects of business innovation and innovation culture, from ideation to launch across many industries.
As opposed to typical IP training that focuses on a basic generalized application of intellectual property and IP law, we take a pragmatic approach to focus on actionable innovation learnings so your employees can:
Identify protectable innovation
Broaden protection around innovation
Systemize innovation operations
Properly focus innovation resources
Avoid the traps that destroy protections for innovation.
Our training is focused on driving business value and creating systematic operations to maximize business impact. Our innovation programs are tailored to business leadership, product development groups, Research and Development, Engineering Teams, and Marketing departments. Learn to drive and execute business while bolstering your most valuable assets… Protectable Innovation!
Contact us today to discuss your innovation training needs.
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A Few Select Topics for Your Business:
(click to jump to each training)
IP Strategy Framework
This presentation will teach you how to strengthen the focus on protecting innovation in your company. You will identify what you should emphasize for protection and what should be de-emphasized. Develop a protection scale for each important development area of your business. Gain an understanding of which geographic markets hold importance for your business and the necessary steps to protect your innovations in those markets.
This presentation is tailored for business leadership setting a companywide IP strategy.
IP Execution Roadmap
Does your company have a product development process such as Stage-Gate? In this presentation, you will learn how to overlay an innovation strategy and IP execution flow over your product development stages. You will learn the proper questions and check-ins for your development and R&D teams. You will also learn about available tools for discovery innovation along with the proper role of an innovation council. Additionally, you will learn how to streamline internal and external communications as well as processes associated with IP administration and execution.
This presentation is tailored for business leadership such as growth and strategy teams, innovation teams, marketing teams, and legal teams.
Utilizing White Space Analytics to Innovate
In this presentation, you will learn how to leverage white space analytics to find innovation projects or identify other applications for innovation. Sometimes innovation comes from completely unrelated fields. These learnings can be utilized during the innovation process to develop new products, find business partners, and/or expand the protection associated with intellectual property.
This presentation is tailored for R&D leadership and teams tasked with discovery.
Freedom to Operate and Design Around Processes
Are you in the process of developing a new product? In this presentation, you will learn the process to ensure freedom to operate. You will also learn the correct procedure to design around patents when there is a potential freedom-to-operate issue.
This presentation is tailored for R&D and engineering leadership and extended teams.
Holistic IP Insulation Strategies
In this presentation, you will learn the various types of protection available for all types of innovation, where these protection types intersect, and how they overlap. You will also learn about actions that will expand your protections and actions that can destroy your protections. From this innovation training, you will walk away with a checklist of items to utilize as you pursue innovation in business or industry. This checklist will help you obtain the most robust protection while outlining the questions you should ask during the various stages of innovation.
This presentation is tailored for broader product development, marketing, engineering, and R&D teams.
IP Considerations for Mergers and Acquisitions
During this presentation, you will learn how to balance due diligence efforts for intellectual property based on a sliding scale of the financial impact of the IP portfolio. You will learn action items and checklists for three levels of diligence based on financial impact.
This presentation is tailored for procurement and legal leadership.
Working with Third Parties on Innovations
During this presentation, you will learn about the different types of contracts used to protect intellectual property, such as non-disclosure agreements, service agreements, and joint-development agreements. You will learn when to switch between the various agreements, and what to say or not to say during negotiations. In this training, your team will learn about the factors that dictate who will own the innovation. You will also gain an understanding of how to use provisional patent applications before entering development contracts to capture ownership of innovation.
This presentation is tailored for procurement and R&D leadership.
Intellectual Property Identification
This presentation explores the basic areas of intellectual property, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and innovation-related contracts. Together, we will explore the difference between the protections of each area of intellectual property and where the different areas blend.
This presentation is tailored for all levels of business.
Competitor and Technology Landscaping
Are you interested in learning about successful innovation advances in a particular technology area or with a competitive set? Send over the technology area or a list of competitors. We will develop a custom presentation that explores ways to identify and expand protections, how to identify new ideas and innovation trends, pinpoint potential business partners and more.
This presentation is tailored for R&D leadership.
Innovation Monitoring
Are you interested in understanding advancements in the discipline of innovation regularly? Send us a list of competitors and/or technology areas. We will develop a recurring presentation that explores the periodic filings in a specific innovation category so you can stay abreast of the most recent filings.
This presentation is tailored for R&D leadership.
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Do you have a unique or specific educational gap at your company related to innovation?
Send us a topic or technology area and we will give a customized innovation program to the audience of your choosing.
About the presenter
Ryan is a founder and owner of Advent, an intellectual property and innovation law firm with a global client base located in Omaha, Nebraska. He has been published in numerous IP journals and has been recognized by several publications as one of the top IP lawyers in the Midwest. Ryan is the inventor of ~30 US and international patents. He sold one group of his patents to an international technology company in one of the largest patent transactions in the field. Additionally, Ryan is a former adjunct professor of IP law at Creighton University.
Ryan has advised several national and international companies on the business process of innovation. He is a member of the innovation boards for several of these organizations where he has helped structure innovation processes to increase protectable assets while implementing internal workflows around innovation to streamline tasks and create efficiencies. He has also educated a vast array of business departments on a multitude of innovation and intellectual property-related topics.
