Intellectual Assets 101
I’m going to share some topics about Intellectual Properties from my own experience giving real-life examples and focusing on startups and research institutions. I’ll try to simplify things as much as I can. This post will cover some basic definitions to make sure we are talking the same intellectual language. So fasten your seatbelt and get ready!
Now tell me the difference between Intellectual Assets, Intellectual Properties, and Intellectual Capital?
Assets (Osoul in Arabic) are resources or items that we own. They can be Physical assets like laptops, desks, and cars.
They can be Intellectual Assets or intangibles (things we can’t hold in hand) like:
Computer software
The know-how you gain from the trials and errors in your job
The knowledge you gain from training courses
Novel ideas you come up with (new way to make online payment easier)
The business model that will differentiate your startup from others
The exclusive contracts that you sign with your customers making it harder for others to compete with you (barrier of entry)
The valuable database/information that took your business years or that required specific skills to put together
The contacts you have with business partners that will facilitate your market penetration in a shorter time
The reputation that you build with your customers every time you spend some pounds in social media campaigns.
Have you noticed that almost all the intellectual assets I mentioned above can easily be imitated by your competitors? you are screwed :(
Your employees can simply leave your startup and join other company taking all their contacts, knowledge, and know-how with them?
Anyone can take your business idea and develop it on her own?
Anyone can use your brand name to make your customers believe it is you and make some money behind your back or provide low quality services affecting your name in a negative way?
I believe the answer to all the above is yes because so far you did not own your intellectual assets; you did not convert those Assets to become your own Properties.
This is the time when you need to use some tools to protect your intellectual assets and make them your own properties so that only you can permit who can use them and who cannot.
I will explain those tools in more details in coming posts but for now it is exciting to know that patents, copyrights, and trademarks that you hear a lot about are just ONE type of those tools; we call them legal tools or Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). So for example a patent is a legal tool to convert an intellectual asset (which is your idea) from words in your head that anyone can steal and use to an intellectual property (Patented Idea) that no one can access or use without your permission. Got the difference between an Asset and a Property?
Now what? What happens after you use all the tools to protect your assets and convert them into your own intellectual properties?
I guess some of you will say: I will prevent anyone from using the new technique, technology, or idea that I patented, right?
This is definitely one of the things you can do with your intellectual property and It is called the “Defensive IP Strategy”. I will talk more about IP strategies in later posts. But for now you need to know that there are other strategies you can use to capture value from your intellectual properties other than preventing others from using them.
Imagine that you can use your intellectual properties to get a bank loan (not in Egypt yet), to access technologies of other big companies (cross licensing), to establish partnerships with big companies, to raise capital from investors, or to be acquired by bigger companies. If you are able to use your intellectual property successfully in business transactions that creates financial value to your company then you can say that you were able to convert your Intellectual Property into Intellectual Capital.
Now that you can differentiate between Intellectual Assets, Intellectual Property, and Intellectual Capital, I’ll share more specific topics in the coming posts. Stay tuned !!
