CPA Global calls on industry to embrace ‘new IP’
“A full roll-out of blockchain could be the Eureka moment for the IP industry,” CPA Global has argued in a new report calling on the industry to embrace the era of what it calls “new IP”.
According to the report, published today, September 17, the IP industry has suffered from a “lack of imagination when it comes to the digital revolution”.
The report, entitled “IP and the Fourth Industrial Revolution”, highlights technologies such as blockchain, which it says could have a transformative effect on the industry.
While blockchain is already beginning to be used to protect online copyright, CPA argues that the “virtually unhackable” technology could have a similar effect in the field of patents and trade secrets.
Blockchain could give more options to rights owners who were previously limited to protecting their invention with a patent, the report said.
“It has traditionally been difficult to demonstrate that a trade secret was a secret in the first place,” said CPA director of customer success and customer services Jon Cooper.
“Blockchain technology enables you to show that you have registered the trade secret, time stamped it, and it’s protected,” he added.
The report was accompanied by the launch of a new CPA “campaign” which encourages all stakeholders in IP to “radically re-imagine the business of innovation”.
CPA said that the campaign was premised on the IP industry’s failure to fully embrace technology, including emerging technologies such as AI and blockchain.
“The IP industry should be as innovative and pioneering as the inventors it supports, embracing the promise and potential of digital transformation as the opportunity it is,” the report said.
CPA argued that by embracing technology, the IP industry could save on “labour intensive” processes such as docketing, which it said was usually not billed to clients.
“This is one area which is forcing margins down...by leveraging digital tools, margins can be increased and costs reduced,” the report argued.
“IP management remains in many cases an analogue endeavour, fraught with inefficiencies,” said Toni Nijms, chief strategy officer at CPA.
“We are throwing down the gauntlet to the industry to see the 2020s as the decade of digital as we move towards a more connected, integrated, faster and more productive IP ecosystem,” he added.
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