Your developers’ goals do not always match up with your enterprise’s goals. Your inventors, engineers, scientists, and developers have short-term goals like:
- Product release dates
- Version update deadlines
- Timelines for clinical trial submissions
As a result, the innovators in your company focus on these important goals and allow patents to fall by the wayside.
But your enterprise’s goal is to protect its innovations. Patents give your enterprise the flexibility to incorporate your innovations into your products, license them to other enterprises, or enforce them against your competitors.
Read on to learn how the TIP Tool can help your enterprise encourage engagement by your innovators in your invention capture system.
Get Your Innovators Into the Right Mindset
Not all innovators have a natural affinity for working with patents. For example, as you get more towards software, only a few technical folks are accustomed to working with patents. To bridge this gap, implementing idea management software that simplifies the patenting process can make it more accessible and less overwhelming for these innovators.
Innovators who have prior experience and familiarity with patents are easier to motivate and engage in your invention capture process. But for other innovators, patent capture is a foreign concept and outside of their comfort zone. And when they get involved, they get overwhelmed
As a result, you end up with an innovation capture system that lags your development cycle. Or your innovators de-prioritize innovation capture within the enterprise.
Putting your innovators into the right frame of mind will help you increase engagement. If they view innovation capture as having a low priority, they will not engage in the system. But if you emphasize the importance of innovation capture, your innovators will at least try to engage in your innovation capture system.
Also read: 7 Surefire Ways to Get More Invention Disclosures!
Simplifying the Process to Increase Engagement
Emphasizing the importance of innovation capture is not enough to increase engagement. You will also need to provide your innovators with tools they can use and engage with.
The TIP Tool makes engagement as easy and as transparent as possible. It also keeps innovators informed throughout the whole process so that they can understand what is going on with their invention. This information allows innovators to track how their innovation is being protected and how it is progressing through the patent office.
Simplifying the Innovation Capture Process
The TIP Tool starts with a very simple invention disclosure form (IDF). It only has a few questions, requests contact information, and then provides a free form disclosure. The inventor can talk about the advantages, how the problems are being solved, and why your innovation is happening.
In a premium tier, the TIP Tool allows your enterprise to customize the IDF with a couple more questions. Customization allows you to incorporate the company’s internal nomenclature so that no training is required for your innovators and other staff. You can add/edit fields of the form.
Making the Innovation Capture Process Accessible and Transparent
The TIP tool maintains a whitelisted email address for each innovator. This allows each inventor to get on the tool and start entering in ideas. By allowing the inventor direct access to the system, you pose the least amount of friction in the innovator’s participation. This feature is a key aspect of controlling patent costs without compromising quality, as it streamlines the entire patent lifecycle from idea capture to filing. And innovators can use their access to watch as things progress through the complete patent lifecycle. They can track their work through the idea capture phase, the vetting phase, the drafting phase, and the filed phase.
After filing, the innovator will see the invention progressing through the US and some foreign patent offices. They have the ability to look at the status of the applications, relieving pressure on the managers, administrators, and patent lawyers from having to provide constant updates. It also creates a very transparent process. Transparency and accessibility encourage innovators to work together.
The TIP Tool can list multiple inventors on a particular idea. The system can display contact information so the other innovators can also see the idea and, if they think of a way to augment it, they can upload a presentation to the TIP Tool.
Accessibility also improves the quality of the patent filing. The innovators work together to capture a virtual file with all the information necessary to fully describe and understand their innovation. Whoever drafts that patent has everything the innovators included.
The patent lawyer can also send draft applications to the administrators, managers, and innovators involved in the invention. As these drafts go back and forth through the tool, people have the ability to comment. This provides detail and color to the patent application.
By providing an interactive and transparent process, innovators can see what happens with their inventions from the beginning to the end. This increases the likelihood they will remain engaged in the process.
Making the Innovation Capture Process Cheaper
Instead of remaining in the dark, inventors understand:
- Where are we with the arguments?
- How many patents do I have?
- What was that patent I filed three years ago?
These are just some of the questions that come up as people get more engaged in the process. The TIP Tool provides answers to these questions in a way that conventional tools cannot.
So, using conventional tools to get answers to these questions can cost a lot of money. You will need to pester your patent attorney to get that information. And of course, the lawyer bills for the time to gather that information for you. As a result, conventional systems are too opaque and too confusing to get any smart person on your technical staff to engage in the process.
Creating a Usable System to Increase Engagement
The TIP Tool demystifies the invention capture process. It provides:
- Straightforward answers about the status
- Predictions on how much it will cost
- When it’s going to be allowed tentatively
As a result of this simplicity, accessibility, and transparency, innovators will find themselves engaging more in the enterprise’s innovation capture process.
You can learn more about the TIP Tool from Triangle IP by taking a product tour. You can see how the innovation capture process works within the TIP Tool. You can even sign up for an interactive product demo so you can experience the features of the TIP Tool for yourself.
