Fish News

This article first appeared in Intellectual Asset Management magazine issue 47, published by The IP Media Group. To view the issue in full, please go to www.iam-magazine.com.

Currently, there is no consensus as to the natural owner of the intangible assets that now comprise much of the value that resides in most corporations. Some businesses charge a chief intellectual property officer (CIPO) with overseeing assets such as patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. Others have a science and technology committee of the board of directors that oversees the company's R&D investments. Many corporations charge no one in particular with the oversight of intangibles, but if asked, might point to different silos for different types – the legal department for intellectual property, the HR department for human capital, IT for trade secrets and other private data, and so on.

Perhaps this lack of an identified manager relates to the very nature of intangible assets – the difficulty of readily quantifying them – and to their growing importance in today's economy. Corporate directors and officers have traditionally confined their focus to the assets that reside on the corporate balance sheet – tangibles with an easily determined value. That may have made sense when such assets represented roughly 80% of Although intellectual assets often comprise the bulk of corporate value, their oversight – if it exists – is all too often diffuse and uncoordinated. A recent IAFS roundtable discussed how this situation might change if there were a post-holder inside companies to take overall responsibility for them corporate value and intangibles represented closer to 20% of corporate value. But study after study has shown that since the 1970s this balance has flipped, so that now intangible assets represent anywhere from 60% to 90% of the average corporation's value, with tangible assets comprising the remainder. With this shift, it is high time for corporations to assign ownership of these assets to the proper corporate steward.

To read the entire article, please click here.