Innovate or Perish: Managing the Enduring Technology Company in the Global Market

Business, Technical, and IP Partnering to Pollinate the Seeds and Harvest the Fruit

Many business organizations began to restructure their technical development and business interfaces in the early 1990s to become more responsive to customers and market needs. Research and development specialists were more closely integrated with technical sales and marketing personnel so that “necessity” or real-world problems once again could be the “mother” of useful innovation in the organization. R&D sharpened its focus in line with the core business missions to create innovation more directly benefiting key products and services of the company.

Since many patent departments were closely aligned with R&D, as those organizations more closely interfaced with business and marketing, the patent or IP functions also grew closer to those functions. As management perceived the potential shareholder value, CEOs and top-level managers encouraged closer integration of IP functions with both marketing and technical functions.

At the inception of the twenty-first century, Robert Lurcott, entrepreneur and retired president and CEO of Henkel Corporation, observed, “Patents are a powerful marketing tool to sustain competitive advantage.” Lurcott further suggested that “patent groups should partner with technical and business personnel to develop the broadest coverage to protect the company’s core proprietary positions; and, this team approach helps to develop new and non-infringing pathways around the patents ...