John Palfrey formerly an IP attorney with Ropes and Gray, now at Harvard Law, recently published a unique guide to IP strategy in a brief and feature-packed book, named aptly “Intellectual Property Strategy”.
The power of the narrative lies in its simplicity – and it drives an impactful message: intellectual property strategy is a critical tool in the corporate tool chest, belonging in the boardroom and the CEO’s office, not just the legal department or outside counsel. This is true across a wide variety of organizations, beyond the Fortune 500s, including non-profits.
Prof. Palfrey bridges “IP 101” with the latest “sophisticated best practices”, effortlessly weaving across law, policy, business and markets – in a Bertrand Russell style. Fresh and simple examples drive home the main points unambiguously– and a wealth of accompanying online material is available to dig deep on all major topics.
As an IP strategist, I took copious notes as I digested many an astute insight and a sea of new ideas – but I will also share the book with a number of my clients, some of whom are entirely new to this level of leveraging IP. Of course, it’s now instant “required reading” for all new hires in our Strategy Practice.
The only thing missing after reading the book is a live, ongoing forum to engage with other IP strategists – there ought to be such a place. We already started creating something through the Licensing Executives Society – stay tuned!