I certainly do not intend to provide full disclosure of the wild time when I was 18 y/o, but there was one thing that I'd like to share. Then, I was working as a pizza delivery driver in my small home town while still going to school. I still vividly remember checking that oversized street map sticked to the door in the "Pizza Blitz" delivery. All of us pizza drivers just needed to "download" this map to our brains before jumping on the seat of one of the Peugeot 306s to deliver the good stuff to our customers. If we failed to remember where to go, we needed to come back and tell the manager: "Sorry, I was not able to find the address". Not good at all...
And then came the Nokia 3210, my first mobile phone: apart from its great features like the game "snake" and SMS, it was also possible to call everybody while being mobile. For my pizza delivery experience, it added real value, as I was now able to get ...erm.. "confirmation" of the address when I was lost in a delivery mission. Really: Thanks for this Nokia!
Nokia has certainly been a major driver and successful player of the mobile phone area. On the other hand, Nokia certainly also had very challenging times, that largely went together with the start of Apple's iPhone era. Nokia became a penny stock. Their mobile phones and business model was outdated *boom*.
In the last years, Nokia's business model has changed towards mobile networks and to IP commercialization, their stock is now in the middle of a nice turnaround, thanks to 5G and to the IP strategy of Nokia.
So, let' s have a brief look at Nokia's IP strategy evolution: Certainly, IP and patents have played a significant role in Nokia's business already in the 90's. They bought IP and patents to protect their treasure, their mobile phone business and well, my good old Nokia 3210. Nokia used their IP to defend market exclusivity.
Today, IP is even more integrated in Nokia's business strategy. One pillar of Nokia's business strategy is (taken from their website): "We create value with long-term research and Intellectual Property". So, value is directly generated by IP and patents. From product protection by IP to "IP is the product". In fact, patent licensing is a significant cash generator and as such quite tangible and important for Nokia. Just the licensing revenue is about 1.5 Billion Dollar each year, not bad. Arguably, their recent success is due to their IP strategy together with their 5G positioning.
What many tech businesses could learn from this:
It is certainly a sign for IP maturity of an organization to discover that: "IP can be traded" and to pursue this route. Quite a lot manufacturing and producing companies would unlock huge revenue potential, if IP would be seen as what it is, a tradeable asset per se. Just like products / services, IP can generate value on the market. IP is itself a product and more than a secondary protective means for tangible products / services .
Certainly, not every product centric or manufacturing tech organization is set up to easily fully adapt to the concept "IP as a product or financial asset" without a significant mind change, restructuring, etc. On the other hand many could, if they just wanted to and embrace the unknown path to growth. IP and patents are more than a legal document for product protection: let's think of them as concepts that bring value to creativity, inventions and innovations. And, if treated as as such assets, their potential value is great for any business.
To be clear, I am not suggesting to follow the Nokia way. Their business model is their business model. Additionally, and in relation to IP monetization strategies in general, there are quite unhealthy extremes, that I've experienced in my work. Sometimes, the boarder to "patent trolling" is not clear to me, at all. Still, it seems a good idea to know how to play this game, otherwise one is highly endangered to be either played with or be left behind.
This little story is just one example, of where your tech business could have a high growth potential, when it comes to IP strategy.
If you have any question, where to start with your IP strategy, where to go to maximize your value by IP and patents or how to bring your IP management to the next level, let us get in touch. What about having a coffee chat and let's see, if there is a fit?