Speech by Associate Professor Ho Peng Kee (at the "Conference On Realising Your Corporate Value through Intellectual Property Management")
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Mr. Lim Choon
CEO, EPC
Distinguished guests.
Ladies and gentlemen.
A very good morning to everyone.
I am very pleased to welcome all of you to today's conference on "Realising Your Corporate Value through Intellectual Property Management." This conference is one of many that EPC has organised over the years to promote the importance of IP management to enterprises. For today's conference, EPC and Pricewaterhouse Coopers, supported by IPOS, have put together an excellent panel of speakers to address various aspects of IP management issues.
Why is managing IP such an important issue? Actually, IP is not a recent phenomenon. It has always been with us. As far back as Venice in the Middle Ages, master craftsmen in guilds prohibited former apprentices from competing with them for a period of 20 years. Throughout the ages, IP systems have protected and rewarded human ingenuity and creativity. The result has been progress and prosperity for societies.
But what is different about managing IP today is the challenge of our increasingly globalised world. It is much easier to exchange new information and ideas, but this also means that we must reach out to a much larger marketplace when we look for information and ideas. Not only that, we must also think globally, when we try to protect our intellectual assets. In this new environment, intellectual assets rather than physical assets are going to drive growth and competitive advantage. Hence, businesses must know how to manage and exploit innovation in order to succeed.
Many of the world's top companies have a common feature: they share a high level of "soft" assets. In other words, they have substantial value in their IP - patents, trademarks, trade secrets, know-how, designs, copyright and information databases.
These top companies show that IP is not just for the high-tech sector. From IBM to Dell, Proctor & Gamble to Gillette, Coca-Cola to McDonald's, these corporations have all been able to strategically use IP to capture market share and increase shareholder value. IP strategy is a new core competency that is just as essential as supply-chain management or marketing research.
But simply listing all these success stories makes the process of IP management sound too simple. Successful IP management requires a team effort from everyone in the company. Let me illustrate this with an example:
One company found that it had a rich seam of gold almost by accident. Published material show how, in 1993, Dow Chemical Corporation decided to do some spring cleaning by appointing a director of intellectual asset management. What they found was that Dow had a portfolio of 29,000 patents, but it was exploiting fewer than half of them. Not only were opportunities being wasted, but it was costing Dow US$30 million each year just to maintain its patent portfolio!
At first, the director of intellectual asset management found it difficult to convince people that they should care about patents. What did he do? First, he gathered all the senior management of the company's businesses in a single room to map out Dow's patent activities, roles and relationships and how to improve upon this.
Dow also worked with its scientists to integrate IP management culture into R&D. Instead of rewarding a scientist according to how many patents he had, scientists now planned their research by mapping it against Dow's business strategy. In addition, teams of front-line business managers and IP experts worked together to formulate the IP asset management process. When necessary, Dow also engaged external expertise, such as in IP valuation.
In effect, Dow's "spring cleaning" became a strategy that fundamentally transformed how the company operated. Results were significant: Dow was able to increase its annual revenue from licensing patents by five times within three years: from US$25 million in 1994 to about US$125 million by 1997!
I tell this story not to highlight any particular way of IP management. Each company will have different resources and face different competitive environments. Rather, I tell you this story to emphasize how it is teamwork that allows a company to successfully exploit its IP. If the director at Dow had simply issued a grand plan to manage IP and sent everyone in the company a memo, what do you think would have happened? Instead, everyone in the company saw what role they had to play in the IP management process: research scientists, front-line business managers, IP experts and senior executives.
But a company's success in exploiting IP also rests on a range of external factors, and IP management also requires a wider cooperative effort. Indeed, today's line-up of speakers shows this clearly. A good company strategy must also take into account the legal, political and tax infrastructure, as well as the availability of local IP resources that will support your business strategy.
Here in Singapore, we have also recognised the importance of IP. We know that our economy must move towards producing more innovative and cutting-edge products and services. To do this, we cannot ignore IP. IP protection spurs creativity by protecting the creativity and intellectual effort behind new knowledge and innovation.
To help our businesses meet the challenge of harnessing and exploiting the full value of their IP, and to achieve Singapore's transformation into an innovation-driven economy, we want to develop Singapore as a global Intellectual Property Hub. In recent months, you might have already heard about this idea of an IP Hub. Today, I would like to put more meat into this idea, and to explain the strategies that have been put in place.
What do I mean when I talk about an IP Hub? It is a place where companies and individuals will naturally gravitate to for IP creation, protection, commercialisation and management. It will also be where IP professionals world-wide look to, for thought leadership and best practices in IP.
For example, a businessman who has an innovative idea and wants information on how to protect and exploit his idea will think: I will manage my IP in Singapore because this is where I can get access to IP information quickly; I can find professionals with the expertise to help me protect my idea, and I can find tools and networking opportunities to help me exploit my idea.
Five Strategies to Make Singapore Into an IP Hub
To make Singapore into a compelling IP hub, we have identified five key strategies.
Our first strategy is to build up our capabilities and foster greater awareness of IP. This is like in football: without the knowledge and skills to play the game, one cannot win the game. We have existing pockets of skills in Singapore. But to turn it into our competitive advantage, we need to invest much more effort. In other words, we need extra coaching to help us create the capabilities and impart the skills so that we can execute our game plan.
Earlier this September, we announced the setting up of the IP Academy. The IP Academy will provide executive and professional education and training for the IP, business and technical communities. It will also provide thought leadership in IP matters for industry, academia and government. This will give a strong boost to efforts that are already ongoing.It will create a lot more awareness of the importance of honing our IP skills, and complement other organisations, such as EPC, which have also been very active in promoting IP management skills to our Singapore enterprises.
At the same time, IPOS has many ongoing initiatives to raise public awareness of IP issues. We have targeted different groups such as students, researchers and businessmen because in an IP hub, awareness of IP should not be confined to just one segment of society.
Our second strategy is to strengthen our IP legislation and enforcement legislation. Extending the football analogy, strong IP and enforcement legislation is like the bedrock of our defence. This gives our businesses the confidence that their innovations are well protected.
To make our defence robust, one of the more recent efforts has been to ensure that our IP management in Singapore is highly professional. For example, Singapore has introduced new regulations for patent agents. Of course, our IP and enforcement legislation also depend on the overall strength of our legal regime. All of this has led to our consistently being ranked top in Asia for IP protection by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC).
The third part of our core strategy is building a strong and dynamic IP regime. A strong and dynamic regime is like a world-class midfield - steady, efficient, flexible and excellent at creating opportunities to score. For instance, we are enhancing our IP services to better support our businesses, such as an ePatents and eTrademarks filing system.
However, Singapore cannot build a strong and dynamic regime on its own. Our regime cannot be isolated from the international IP regime. Hence, we are signatories to the major conventions, and are always in touch with the latest developments in the international arena. We also work closely with organisations such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the ASEAN Working Group on IP Cooperation. We ensure that we are well plugged into the communities of IP policy markers, IP owners, venture capitalists and business strategists, and that we carve out strong roles for Singapore. The intention is to help create the opportunities for our businesses to pursue effective commercialisation.
By now, you must know where this analogy is leading up to. That's right, it is our strikers. So far, we have been able to bring in the coach, strengthen the defence and build up the midfield. All the opportunities can be there, but we cannot win the game unless there is a strikeforce going out there to convert these opportunities into goals.
Hence, a critical part of our overall strategy hinges on strengthening the link between IP creation and its exploitation. This is where you, our businesses, come in. Like our earlier example of Dow, you are the ones who will gather your company resources to realise the value of your IP. You are the critical link - our strikers who are out there scoring the goals.
Our government agencies are ready to work with you to facilitate your IP efforts. Becoming an IP hub involves the coordinated effort of many agencies, such as IPOS, EDB, ASTAR, IE Singapore and SPRING Singapore. They all have been assisting in focused aspects to help our businesses instil an innovation culture in their organisations, create cutting edge products and services, develop strategies for IP management and internationally exploit their IP. But ultimately, you are our critical link between creativity and business savvy. You are the ones who will combine technical expertise, market knowledge and IP asset management skills to maximise the value of your IP.
Now that we have our strategies to build up a good team, what else must we do? Our fifth strategy is to raise Singapore's profile in the international IP arena. Just like in soccer, a good team has to be exposed to other playing styles and other ideas, in order to become a great team. We also need to showcase ourselves to the world, so that they know what Singapore has to offer. To this end, some of our agencies have been working to bring the appropriate exposure to the team. For example, in March next year, IPOS will be holding Optimal 2003 and this is where our businesses can share ideas on IP management with the best in the world.
So this is what we need: coaching to give us the knowledge and capabilities to play the game; a great defence in our strong IP and enforcement legislation; a skilful midfield in the form of our strong and dynamic regime; a creative and effective strikeforce that strengthens the link between IP creation and exploitation; and plenty of international exposure. These are all critical elements of our drive to become an IP Hub.
All of these parts are equally important for us to reach our goal. This is a team effort. We must play total football. I'm not just talking about the various Government agencies such as EDB, ASTAR, Spring Singapore, IE Singapore and IPOS that have worked towards this goal, but I'm also talking about our local IP professionals, IP associations and both Singapore-based and foreign companies. Everyone is a key contributor to our Singapore Inc effort to meet this challenge.
Today's seminar will hone your skills and knowledge, and expand your contacts. I encourage you to use these to play as a team. Together, let us meet this challenge to rediscover our IP, reinvent our businesses and remake Singapore as an international IP hub. So, lets play!
Thank you. |
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