On 21st June, a group of chief intellectual property officers (CIPOs) and IP thought leaders got together at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago, just before the IP Business Congress began.  Over the course of the afternoon, in a session facilitated by Luke Hohmann of Enthiosys, they played a series of innovation games designed to explore the CIPO role and how it might develop over the coming years. It was a very productive few hours. We could probably have learned quite a lot by doing a series of one on one interviews, but it would have taken months to organise and to co-ordinate. More importantly, we would have missed out on the interplay between the various participants - their different experiences, their agreements, their disagreements and how these were resolved. I was dubious about it all beforehand, afterwards I was a total convert.

Anyway, Luke has now put together his summary of what happened on 21st June and you can access it here. Note that the report is based on what Luke observed and heard; it is not necessarily reflective of what might happen to the CIPO role in the coming years. It is a matter of fact, for example, that most of today's CIPOs have some kind of legal background. That does not mean this will always be the case. Likewise, not all CIPOs do exactly the same kind of job or sit in the same place within their companies' overall organisational chart. However, I am not going to spend too much time going into allof that here, because we will be providing an in-depth article in the next issue of IAM, which publishes at the end of this month.

That said, a few general points are worth making. First of all, I don't think we should get too hung up about the CIPO title. It does not actually matter what the job function is called, what is important is the job that is being done. On top of that, I think it is fair enough to wonder whether we should be worrying about CIPOs when the vast majority of companies have only the sketchiest notion of what IP is all about. To appoint a CIPO, you need to understand IP. Most companies do not understand IP and so are not close to being in a position to bring in someone whose role is to maximise its value. On top of that, most companies are probably not big enough to have a CIPO in the first place.

The way I see it, however, is that the CIPO is symbolic of a certain way of viewing IP. A business does not need to have a CIPO to aspire to do what a CIPO can enable. What it does need, however, is an IP-related vision and strategy - by looking at the work that CIPOs do these things can be developed. On top of that, the CIPO role is something around which to build future IP-related educational programmes in business schools and universities.

That's why it is important for us now to go beyond the "what" to the much more important question of the "how". Those companies that now employ CIPOs, or something similar, did not always do so. How did change come about in those companies? How did they see the light? Who led the process? I think that if we are able to answer such questions, we are going to be much better placed to develop ways in which to bridge the still all too common divide between those inside the IP bubble and those in the boardroom who remain steadfastly outside it. Once that happens, everything becomes possible.

Over the coming months, IAM and the CIPO Manifesto Working Group will be rolling out more initiatives and developing further projects, all designed to focus on ensuring IP assumes its rightful place inside the company boardroom. Keep a look out for these. And get involved.

Sectors

IP management, IA management, IP business

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