Unlocking the potential of great business ideas

Charles Handy, the management guru and bestselling business author, has an often-quoted view on the true root of business success:

“Forget land, buildings, or machines – the real source of wealth today is intelligence, applied intelligence. We talk glibly of ‘intellectual property’ without taking on board what it really means. It isn’t just patent rights and brand names; it is the brains of the place.”

Increasingly, it looks like modern business leaders are taking that message to heart.

By actively managing intellectual capital as a strategic asset – across its complete life cycle – businesses find they can unlock its full value – now and into the future. Corporate intellectual property (IP) then becomes the foundation for competitive advantage, for driving further innovation, and for fostering business growth.

To get there, the starting point has to be the development of a full appreciation of what constitutes IP and how it can be captured, exploited, and protected.

The broad scope of intellectual property

Corporate IP comes in many forms – some often overlooked. IP can encompass unique product designs, material compositions, technical drawings, process descriptions, computer code, business case and market studies, marketing material, supplier details, and contracts.

The ideas behind all of these can be protected. Depending on the type of innovation, the legal mechanisms can be applied in the form of patents, trademarks, copyright, trade secrets, and design registrations.

These approaches to safeguarding intellectual capital allow companies to “assert their assets,” says Martin Dehn, head of Corporate IP at G+D. “Successful companies today not only have to be innovators in engineering, technology, and design, they also have to be innovators in the management of IP and in the legal strength it takes to maximize the value of their IP portfolios.”

Why is a focus on IP so important?

The prospect of such value creation is inspiring a growing number of companies – including G+D – to develop a systematized approach to IP, with some very clear goals in mind. 

• Catalyst for innovation: By harvesting, capturing, and protecting IP, companies can monetize inventions and reward both investors and the source of that unique creativity – the inventors and their teams. In turn, that encourages further investment and a sharper focus on invention, creating a virtuous circle of innovation.
• Route to secure markets: Establishing and protecting IP gives a company current and future rights to play in – or even to “own” – a particular market. In essence, to effectively block competitors from a business segment or encourage them to license the market-making IP. In that sense, IP opens untapped markets for the asset creator, says Dehn: “A key aim of IP models is to secure future market areas.”
• Badge of quality: The enforcement of IP rights gives customers the confidence that they are purchasing the “genuine article” and not an inferior-quality copycat or counterfeit product. IP ownership also establishes a quality threshold, a standard by which any alternative approaches are judged.
• A safeguard of reputation: From a company viewpoint, IP builds customer trust and reinforces recognition of its brand. This is a crucial part of increasing brand loyalty as well.
• Encourages strong business partnerships: A well-managed, innovative IP program encourages other players in a sector or complementary sectors to form alliances that can deliver mutual benefits and encourage investment that can support future innovation.
• Possibility of public funding and tax benefits: Along with these, a further positive consequence of building a good IP program is that it can open up routes to public funding or, in certain cases, a reduction in the tax an entity pays.

Building a strong IP portfolio

Let’s take a look at some IP success stories that have taken shape at G+D. Since the company decided to streamline its work in the IP field in 2018–2019, it has seen positive results right across its portfolio – from digital security and financial platforms to currency technology.

G+D has established patents in areas such as next-generation sustainable banknotes, the personalization of cards with graphics, and innovative ways to issue new cards. “It’s a strategy designed to make intellectual property an asset for the business,” says G+D’s Sina Scholz-Riecke, IP Portfolio Manager for Financial Platforms. “Our mission as an IP team is to protect ideas and to help maximize their potential.”

Let us look at a few examples to see how this works in practice. 

Cards with ‘wow’ – and glow

G+D is constantly looking to add value to the broad range of payment cards it produces for its many financial services customers around the world. Even with an increasing number of consumers adopting digital cards, there is still an opportunity for providers to add that certain something to their physical cards that move them to the next level.

Among the “wow factors” that G+D has identified as having potential is Cards with Lights, in which a part of a card is illuminated when it is used by the consumer. That area has also been identified as a strong candidate for building a strategic IP portfolio that could help to secure future contracts with card providers.

That process started with the hosting of an IP harvesting workshop, with contributions from a cross-functional group. The session was designed to capture the creative ideas that were emerging from within the different G+D cards teams (including R&D, product development, and sales and marketing), allowing for the assessment and prioritization of different IP candidates. Those candidates were then studied for both the feasibility of patenting them as an invention and their potential for generating new business value.

“Such workshops end up ranking ideas by business usefulness,” outlines Scholz-Riecke. “This is based on questions like: ‘Do we think the customer really wants this? Can we sell it? Is it technologically ready? Can we produce it in the short term or does it require significant additional R&D investment? Is it genuinely unique or does another company already have something like it?’”

An outcome of the Cards with Lights workshop was the creation of several “invention disclosures” that defined key attractive features such as different parts of the card lighting up to convey a successful transaction, lighting the card when it comes close to a card reader, and the use of spatially extended light effects.

The future proposition: to offer card providers a new product that will have high appeal for their premium customers.

Innovating the IP process

Building that kind of valuable IP doesn’t happen without a robust process – and one that is appreciated across the organization.

To create a sense of the power of IP, G+D involves teams in IP Awareness training, so they understand what kinds of inventions and ideas could be candidates for IP and how those can then be transformed into valuable assets. Among other elements, those educational sessions cover:

1. Attributes of an invention: Inventions need to enable new functionality by solving a problem that was previously regarded as impossible, or by providing a new solution that combines known technical approaches to deliver new unexpected advantages.
2. Invention disclosure process: With support from IP portfolio managers, the specific details of an invention need to be captured in an invention disclosure that outlines the solution in technical detail and the potential advantages it will deliver.
3. Patent drafting process: The portfolio team considers the solution technically, commercially, and legally. The patent attorney determines whether the proposal is actually new and inventive. The portfolio manager is the point of contact between the business unit, the attorney, and the portfolio team. Based on the IP strategy that has been agreed on between all stakeholders, the portfolio manager makes the decision to file the application (or not).
4. Patent prosecution: Patent attorneys then make a case for the invention at the patent office and respond to feedback on the amendments necessary. For a patent to be granted or refused can take as long as three years – hence the frequently used term “patent pending.”

Star on the rise

G+D’s StarSign^® Key Fob provides a good example of how IP – once established – can generate commercial value.

Launched in 2021, the Key Fob authenticates a user via a fingerprint reader so they can pass through a physical barrier (such as a security gate) or when they securely log in to a device. To protect its innovations, G+D used its trademarks on both the StarSign^® name and the company’s name and logo.

It registered the design of the 3-D shape of the authenticator and has filed patent applications for the unique enabling technologies, namely for “a secure element which authorizes the use of an app by comparing authorization information with a list” and “a device with a sensor that captures user features and a secure element to authenticate a user and authorize the use of an app.”

Lessons for safeguarding IP success

Martin Dehn highlights a few practical guidelines that have emerged from the company’s creation of an IP-aware innovation culture.

The individuals and teams who are the source of intellectual capital behind an innovation should submit an invention disclosure as soon as they possibly can, he says. That helps the IP team file a patent before any rival comes up with a similar invention or before information on the idea leaks out of the organization.

If employees have to share details of the invention with partners or customers (for good commercial reasons), that should only be done under a watertight non-disclosure agreement. In a similar vein, all electronic communications about the invention (both internally and externally) should always be encrypted.

And, as tempting as it might be to publicize a breakthrough idea, those close to the invention should avoid presenting or talking about its existence externally. In this way, discretion is maintained, and G+D’s employees can get on with business, driven as always by the spirit of innovation.

As that advice emphasizes, the protection of intellectual capital can be as important as its creation.