Intellectual property management method and apparatus

• US 7,630,915 B2
• Filed: 06/14/2006
• Issued: 12/08/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bracchitta, John Anthony, Walter, Howard J. Jr., Marmillion, Patricia McGuiness, Rickers, Henry Charles, Pierson, Bernadette Ann
• Primary Examiner(s): Jeanty; Romain
• Application Number:
  US11/424,003
• Publication Number:
  US 20060235719A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,273 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7, 705/8
• US Class Current: 705/7.22
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06312 Adjustment or analysis of established resource schedule, e.g. resource or task levelling, or dynamic rescheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/184 Intellectual property management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 99/00 Subject matter not provided for in other groups of this subclass
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

An intellectual property management facility for proactively creating, developing and managing an intellectual property portfolio includes: determining available resource capacity for an intellectual property activity in a tracking system; assigning technical attributes to the activity in the tracking system; apportioning resource capacity for the activity by technical attribute based on the value assigned to each of the technical attributes and based on available resource capacity; obtaining actual resource usage by technical attribute from the tracking system; and managing resource allocation for the intellectual property activity by determining the difference between the actual resource usage and the resource allocation by technical attribute.

Claims

1. A computer readable medium for storing data for access by an application program being executed on a computer, comprising:

a data structure stored on said computer readable medium for facilitating managing resource allocations within an intellectual property portfolio across multiple technology groups, said data structure comprising;

a first field including a quantity representative of actual resource usage for an intellectual property activity by technology groups over a first time period;

a second field including a quantity representative of actual resource usage for the intellectual property activity by technology groups over a second time period, wherein the second time period is longer than the first time period; and

wherein comparison of information within the first field and the second field facilitates managing resource allocations for the intellectual property activity within the intellectual property portfolio across the multiple technology groups.

2. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the second time period is inclusive of the first time period.

3. The computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the first time period is less than five months and the second time period is at least two times the first time period.

4. The computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the first time period is in a range of two to four months and the second time period is at least three times the first time period.

5. The computer readable medium of claim 1, further comprising a third field including a set goal for a given time period for resource usage for the intellectual property activity by technology groups.

6. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the intellectual property activity comprises at least one of (1) modulating invention disclosure creation activity, (2) evaluating invention disclosures, (3) searching inventions based on evaluated invention disclosures, (4) filing patent applications based on evaluated invention disclosures, (5) issuing patents, or (6) maintaining issued patents.