An Overview of the IP Politics in Software and Research based SME Company

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of IP politics and management of the IP assets in software and research based SME company. At the beginning it is presented a brief introduction to the general theme of IP politics in SME companies, then it is described, general and detailed, and at the end some results and case studies of IP asset management in software and research based SME company have been placed and we have dealt with some further steps. Within the general story about IP politics it is mentioned that patents have a main role in IP politics and management and it is explained the workflow concerning maintenance and processing of individual patent applications. It is also provided an overview of some internal issues in IP asset management regarding to the ownership, intangible assets such as: franchises, licenses, contracts, software, know how, etc. After general story about IP politics, it is given an overview of detailed steps concerning internal IP software system with its online database of the patent documents and with many of its modules with different functionalities. In the last section we put the results of these functionalities which are produced by internal IP software system e.g. automatically overview of researchers in relation to the patent application, an overview of the most common technologies in the field of software in relation to the patent applications, many business company projects in relation to the patent applications etc..