Control Intellectual Property
In addition to regular business information, you need to understand and keep an inventoried portfolio of all your company’s Intellectual Property (IP). IP refers to a legal entitlement that sometimes attaches to the expressed form of an idea, or to some other intangible subject matter.
Furthermore, this legal entitlement generally enables its holder to exercise exclusive rights of use in relation to the subject matter of the IP. The term intellectual property reflects the idea that the subject matter is the “product of the mind or the intellect,” and IP rights may be protected by law in the same way as any other form of property.
All of your intellectual property should have value to your firm, as long as you have proactively developed and protected it to the best of your ability.
For more IP information: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property
If you develop software, for example, the code itself may be considered your intellectual property and could have components whose processes may qualify for a patent.
A patent is “a grant made by a government that confers upon the creator of an invention the sole right to make, use, and sell that invention for a set period.”
