The State of the IP Industry Survey 2009

Full results of the first annual 'State of the Industry Survey 2009' are now available.

In April 2009, CPA Global commissioned the industry survey, in association with IP Review magazine, to capture the current mood of the sector and to gain insights into the key issues that were on the minds of IP professionals around the world. More than 200 IP professionals, both in-house and law-firm based, responded to questions that sought their opinions on the current and future state of the IP sector. Initial results were revealed by CPA Global at the 131st INTA Annual Meeting in Seattle in May and provided the industry with some interesting findings.

One of the main themes to come out of the survey was the challenges that IP professionals are facing as a result of the financial downturn. Responses paint a picture of tighter corporate IP budgets, reduced volumes of IP work for law firms and severe pressure on IP resources, both in corporate legal departments and in law firms. But, over and above the financial challenges they are facing, survey respondents also highlighted a number of ways in which they felt the IP system was failing them, as well as suggestions for how it could be improved.

Corporate responses showed that, while in some cases there is greater awareness at board level of the value of IP as an asset, in-house professionals are increasingly concerned that they are being faced with 'too many patents and not enough time', particularly in light of reduced numbers of staff. They believe that the high expectations from top management on what they are able to patent, combined with a reduced budget, is compromising the quality of their IP portfolios.

Law firms, for their part, highlighted client education as key to IP business retention. With companies under pressure to cut back on IP budgets, they said that educating clients on the value of their IP assets was critical to safeguarding work and revenue streams. This approach reflects survey results, which revealed that more than one third (37%) of the in-house IP professionals surveyed said that they plan to spend less in 2009 on protecting their IP assets than they did in the previous year.

View a full report of the survey results.