Lately, the World Intellectual Property Organization started paying more and more attention to unregistered IP rights, such as trade secrets, copyright, common law trademarks, defensive publishing, and others. We see this phenomenon as the natural consequence of the growing relevance for innovators of these often neglected “minor” rights.

This is happening not just because many industries are not getting much out of patents and trademarks (too slow, too difficult to obtain for software and digital products, too geographically fragmented, too expensive, …), but mostly because innovators are now aware that IP management is more than a collection of one-time tasks for filing and prosecution processes. They realized that IP management is a daily practice supporting the company operations in every department, from R&D to HR, from business development to PR.

We shared this view of modern IP management with the nice folks at WIPO Magazine, and they were kind enough to publish our traditional Bernstein recipe for IP management, based on two main ingredients: data encryption and decentralized technologies.

The result is this article: IP is a journey: blockchain and encrypted storage are your best friends. We hope it will trigger a stimulating discussion.

PDF version of the article is available here.