Establishing an Intellectual Property Management Process: Seeking Industry Standards and Frameworks

Hi, I am planning to establish the Intellectual Property Management process in our organization. Also, I am auditing the current condition of this process.

1. Do we have any industry standards that can be used to conduct this audit?
2. Does anyone have a framework/model of IPMS?
3. Is FTO (Freedom To Operate) an industry term? If yes, does anyone from the IT industry have a structured process for this with metrics?
4. Are there any external consultants or auditors available to perform a gap analysis of this process?

And many more questions on the Intellectual Property process. But to start with, please reply to the above. If you have any documents, standards, or checklists, please share.

Thanks,
SRK

Thank you for your response, Mr. Nikhil S. Gurjar. We already have some ad hoc processes for IP, but we are unsure of the quality of the processes and whether we are following industry standards. Therefore, I would like to conduct an audit or gap analysis to identify areas for improvement.

Additionally, the cycle time of our internal IP processes, including FTO clearance, is too long. I am interested in understanding if there are any benchmarks available in the market, particularly for software/technical IP activities.

The challenges we are facing are due to attrition in this area. It would be greatly appreciated if you could provide us with information regarding the industry standards used for IP processes.

Thank you,

SRK

I guess the attached research might help provide you with some additional perspectives. They do not discuss the specifics you have asked for, but will help you understand the business perspective behind driving the process. We could, of course, discuss it out with you.

To be honest, most companies I have seen have ad hoc processes. Hence, I would be surprised to see an industry standard. Of course, there are several guidelines one could use. Very few have IP specialists integrated into their operations (I know Intel is one of them). But as you rightly said, it needs to be audited depending on the business impact expected. Attrition in this area is not uncommon because of the tricky parameters used in assessment.

I am unable to upload the TIFF file. If you can share your email address, I could send it across.

Here is the TIFF file shared by Mr. Nikhil, zipped and attached for others' reference.

Thanks,
Sudhakara