By Gordon MacSween, Managing Director – Filing & Prosecution, at CPA Global
Those familiar with CPA Global and our suite of software and services know that we are ambitious for the IP industry. Indeed, we frequently discuss the possibility of ‘Frictionless IP’ – an environment in which the ideas that drive the world are only enhanced by the IP systems that manage them – not constrained by them.
In recent years, our unrelenting focus on achieving Frictionless IP for the benefit of our customers has directed our business strategy, from the merger and integration with ipan/Delegate Group to the reorganization of the business into two core divisions.
Our products and services are designed to create an IP infrastructure that is so easy to use, so cost efficient and so free of roadblocks as to actively encourage innovation and the creation of IP. The emergence of our industry-leading Filing & Prosecution service line is a case in point.
The Filing & Prosecution line of the business draws together the former Valipat business in Brussels, the ipan/Delegate ‘extended services’ team in Belgrade and CPA Global’s 600 strong IP shared service teams in Noida and Minneapolis. These now have a common goal that encapsulates Frictionless IP – to provide IP professionals with an end-to-end, integrated tech-enabled solution for managing the complex process of obtaining IP rights
This is a thriving and rapidly growing part of our business, with the largest team of IP filing experts in the industry. It provides services for patents and trademarks to IP law firms and corporates alike. Its success is not only a testament to the outstanding work of the teams involved, it is also the fruit of a strategy that concentrates on simplifying IP management – to gradually bring about the Frictionless IP we often talk about.
The range of services in this business line include docketing, coordination of foreign filings, preparation of invention disclosure statements, proof reading, data verification, invoice management and the onboarding of IP data from acquisitions. What these services all have in common is that they are designed to make life easier for customers in one of four ways:
- Better planning of resources: with specialized teams activated only when needed to deal with peaks and troughs in demand; this reduces the need for fixed customer costs – including for the recruiting, training and retention of Filing & Prosecution staff.
- Better controlling costs: through improved cost visibility and better forecasting, by providing fixed prices for services which usually fluctuate in cost and by optimizing resourcing via multi-shore delivery teams across APAC, EMEA and North America.
- Improving efficiency: with best practice processes to maximize efficiency and ease, with specialist service teams taking on administrative tasks and providing economies of scale.
- Risk mitigation and management: with control points included in every process to ensure data accuracy in the IPMS, vastly reducing the risks of lost information or missed deadlines and the costs (both financial and opportunity costs) those can create.
Whilst these services provide advantages to customers in their own right, CPA Global is also integrating the Filing & Prosecution service line with other products, including IP management systems and online portals. We know that by combining our products and services we can begin to create the customer friendly, single point of access for all IP needs that the industry is asking for.
Total Frictionless IP does not exist yet, but in continuing the path towards it in concrete ways, through service lines such as Filing & Prosecution, we can help innovative businesses and their advisers begin to realize the tangible benefits of this coming reality.
To learn more about CPA Global’s Filing & Prosecution services please click here.
