IP management and technology provider CPA Global has launched a new global campaign called New IP, aimed at inspiring the international IP industry to radically re-imagine the business of innovation.

“Analogue endeavour”

The campaign highlights the failure to put technology at the heart of how the IP industry works, thus sapping the true potential of inventors and inventions to transform both industries and societies. According to CPA Global, the 2020s are set to be the decade of radical digital change for the IP and Innovation industries and the law firms that strategically advise them. As IP and intangible assets continue to rise up boardroom and national agendas, pressure is growing to accelerate the pace of technology adoption, intelligence, data and automation in an industry that remains heavily analogue in its approach and methodology. The risk, says CPA Global, is that by ignoring the digital imperative the IP industry itself will become a brake on the pace of global innovation, which remains reliant on infrastructure and processes which are rapidly approaching breaking point. Toni Nijm, chief strategy officer at CPA Global, said “Slow and steady will not win the IP race, and boardrooms are understandably now starting to sit up and take notice.” Mr Nijm explained, “IP management remains in many cases an analogue endeavour, fraught with inefficiencies. This is a global issue and it must change. The technological solutions are out there already, waiting to be unleashed and ready to drive a digital revolution across the IP industry.

Status report

Driving this race toward ’New IP’, according to a new CPA Global report also released today, are a number of important factors set to revolutionise how the IP industry works - and the pace and method of how innovations are brought to market. Blockchain is creating alternative ways to track and protect IP; redefining documentation and verification of ownership rights; Artificial intelligence offers bigger and faster data processing, less administration, and increased accuracy; and big data harnesses untapped insights from growing volumes of information to enable smarter decision-making, better law firm client support and innovation opportunities. Taken together with macro-economic issues such as global data harmonisation - from the unitary patent to increasing global cooperation between national IP regimes, moving toward a ‘single source of truth’ to political pressures, this reality requires the industry to radically re-think its approach to many aspects of IP and innovation.

Throwing down the guantlet

IP’s time has come to embrace the power of technology says Mr Nijm, “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.” As part of the campaign, CPA Global will roll-out a global programme incorporating an industry engagement and awareness campaign - across online and offline channels including social media and events - and an online New IP hub providing access to the latest thinking on digital transformation in IP from CPA Global and its customers. The report can be found here.