Edison in the Boardroom

Julie L. Davis and Suzanne Harrison Today's corporations are always on the lookout for exciting new andinnovative ideas that can be used to generate revenue. Up untilrecently, this meant taking these ideas and turning them intoproducts or services, which could then be sold for profit. Buttoday, a unique new concept is revolutionizing the way companiesare getting value from ideas. Instead of incorporating them intoproducts or services, today's innovations may be bartered, licensedor sold in the „idea“ stage for tremendous amounts of money. Forexample, IBM currently receives well over $1 billion in revenueevery year from licensing its intellectual property, unrelated tothe manufacture of a single product. Today more and more companiesare adopting this idea of turning their legal departments, whereintellectual property is housed, from cost centers into profitcenters. Edison in the Boardroom: How Leading Companies Realize Value fromTheir Intellectual Assets takes an in-depth look at therevolutionary concept of Intellectual asset management (IAM). IAMis changing the way companies all over the world are doingbusiness. In their careers as business consultants, the authorshave been privileged to meet individuals who were clearly ahead oftheir time when it came to realizing value from their companies'innovations. Based on their interactions with the ICM Gathering--aninternational group of companies who meet several times a year tocreate, define and benchmark best practices in the area of IAM--theauthors have compiled a wealth of knowledge and successful storiesthat illustrate how far businesses have come in their ability toleverage and monetize their intellectual assets. Incorporating stories and teachings from some of the mostsuccessful companies in the worlds -- such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Procter & Gamble, Rockwell, Dow, Ford and many others -- theauthors have made an exhaustive study of IAM and its implicationsfor today's businesses. They have culled a hierarchy of bestpractices that today's companies can integrate into their ownbusiness philosophies to gain the best return from theirintellectual assets.