Michael Hages

The current novel coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic fallout may provide a good opportunity to step back and reevaluate the way companies approach intellectual property. Many are already broadly reorganizing workflows for collaborative development to deal with distanced or remote working. This may provide an opportunity to reassess where IP fits within these workflows and to find opportunities for greater collaboration. The slowed—or, for some, halted—economy has also lengthened or delayed development cycles, which may give the time needed to discover new ways of strategically managing patent filings. Even those companies seeing less drastic economic effects may observe market trends toward new products or even new categories that fall outside of previous forecasting and planning, inviting more focus and less-compressed schedules.