IPPro The Annual 2018/19

A new beginning
Bill Elkington, president and chair of the Licensing Executives Society,
describes the latest for the association
In 1965, the Licensing Executives Society (LES) began as
a diverse group of technology and patent licensing people
with a common interest in learning from one another and
teaching others about the field of licensing. They began with
the big idea that licensing is a profession with associated
best practices that should be developed, learned, used to
the benefit of the professionals involved, to the advantage of
the organisations they represent, and, finally, to the benefit
of society at large.
The founders of LES believed licensing could serve
innovators by putting the fruits of their innovation into the
hands of those who would help that innovation flourish.
They envisioned the profession of licensing as supporting
and enhancing the innovation economy.
Over the years, LES has remained true to this mission,
but it lately has begun to expand its concept of what the
profession is and what it is in the best position to serve.
Yes, licensing continues to be an element of how LES
defines itself, but more recently, there has been a growing
recognition within LES of the importance of business
management functions—in addition to licensing—that figure
importantly in the creation, preservation and harvesting
of value from innovation. And this has come about as the
diversity and perspectives of LES members themselves
have expanded into intellectual capital management areas
outside of licensing.
There has been an increasing awareness that licensing
is an aspect of a bigger idea. Many believe that there is a
profession of intellectual capital management that should be
defined, developed, understood and supported.
At a strategy meeting in July 2017, the LES board realised
that no professional organisation has yet to posit the
existence of something called the intellectual capital
management profession. Further, it concluded that no
professional organisation has set out to define what best
practices look like in intellectual capital management. And at
that meeting, the LES board decided that LES should set out
to take on that role.
At this juncture, it is important to point out that the
profession under discussion is not the intellectual property
management profession but rather the emerging intellectual
capital management field.
A very great deal of the valuable ‘i-stuff’ that enterprises
develop, manage and employ to create shareholder value
may not be protectable under the four bodies of IP law.
As a result, a more expansive concept of the field is
needed. For example, areas of intellectual capital that
might not be protectable under IP law include business
models, quality management systems, innovation
management systems, business partnering processes,
merger-acquisition-and-integration processes and
the unique combinations of these and other business
processes that give a company a differentiated set of
operational and financially beneficial attributes.
Just as it is difficult to conceive of a 21st century
corporation of any size without a human resources
department, 50 years from now, it will be difficult to
imagine a corporation without an intellectual capital
management department.
It is commonplace that since the 1980s and 90s, 80
percent or more of many companies’ equity value is in
its intellectual capital. Yet today, in many companies,
intellectual capital is managed in an ad hoc way, with
each part of the organisation more or less on its own to
figure out how to contribute to its piece of intellectual
capital management.
With so much at stake, shouldn’t companies’ intellectual
capital be managed systematically, through a coherent set of
business policies, processes, tools, training and metrics?
This is where LES is going. LES’ vision is to connect and
inspire the intellectual capital management community—to
create that community by drawing a broad diversity of
people involved in intellectual capital management to
LES and providing them with lively and engaging content,
thought-provoking collegial discussions, beneficial
intellectual capital management standards and a
comprehensive executive-quality curriculum.
Part of the reason intellectual capital management is ad hoc
in the 21st-century corporation is that there has been little
30 IPPro: The Annual