WATCH: Legal teams ‘struggle to map patents to products’

In-house teams’ metrics often “don’t go deep” in assessing IP value, say experts from IP management company Tradespace.

IP teams may not be aware of a multitude of key performance indicators that could dramatically improve their contribution within a business, experts told WIPR.

Professionals from IP management company Tradespace unpacked the KPIs traditionally used by legal teams and explained how technology now allowed for more in-depth reporting.

“A lot of metrics that are tracked are numbers that look good on the surface but don’t go deep in trying to assess the true value or the strategic impact of IP,” Marcia Chang, VP, IP operations and client success at Tradespace.

It is now possible to measure IP’s contribution to the overall strategy of a business, in a variety of ways, added Chang.

On the question of which category of KPIs is underused but has the potential to provide value, Justin Rerko, VP, Strategy and Business Development, said there were sophisticated ways of measuring IP so it can achieve its fundamental purpose—to protect revenue.

“I’ve worked with a lot of companies and they really struggle to pull up their portfolio and tell you what patent maps to what product,” said Rerko, encouraging companies looking to improve in this area to read a Tradespace report that offered a “balanced scorecard approach to KPIs”.

“[The report] looks at all the dimensions of IP performance,” before describing various under-tracked metrics that IP teams could benefit from.