The three stages of data verification and auditing in IP services

For corporate IP counsel looking to undertake an audit of their company’s intellectual property (IP)portfolio, there are important considerations to ensure the process is as effective as possible.

Before you work out how to undertake a verification and auditing project, it’s worth asking why you would want to. Many companies, especially those that have undertaken acquisitions or been through mergers, may not have total clarity on the various assets they hold in the business.

Further to that, those assets may well not all be accurately recorded, especially when it comes to ownership information. Finally, you may well own IP assets that you don’t use and/or don’t need, but which you are still maintaining at a cost to your business. Any or all of these issues could be reasons to conduct an audit, and indeed, even without them, it’s probably still worth thinking about, simply because over time, the quality and accuracy of IP portfolios is likely to degrade due to personnel or process changes in your business.

What are the three stages of IP data verification and auditing?

IP audits and data verification services, such as those provided by Novagraaf, break the verification and auditing process down into three distinct stages.

• Verification

The first stage of any audit procedure is to verify the current IP assets held by the business. Firstly, by assessing the quantity and type of data held about the portfolio and then by verifying the accuracy of that data using public records. In many cases, inaccuracies will be identified at this stage, resulting in corrections to the data to ensure it’s completely accurate.

As part of the IP services provided, this process is managed by your external partner in conjunction with your team. It can take up to 12 months to complete the verification stage, but that is time well spent, since it lays the foundations for what follows and identifies critical issues early.

• Review

Once you are satisfied that the data you hold is accurate, the review process can begin. With trademarks, that entails your intellectual property services provider clarifying and evaluating your filing strategy in partnership with you.

Novagraaf would undertake an analysis of the present scope of protection in order to identify any weak spots, such as marks that are not protected in all required jurisdictions, for example. This is used to help your filing strategy going forward.

At this stage, you should also consider a competitor analysis, which your intellectual property services provider should be able to undertake on your behalf, to identify potential threats to your portfolio and to assess the wider marketplace.

• Strategy

Once the verification and review processes are complete, you can move on to the key driver of the project: strategy. There’s some value in verifying and reviewing your assets as a standalone project, but coupling it with a forward-looking prosecution and protection strategy for the future is where the real benefits accrue.

Novagraaf would work with you to establish the most effective strategies, considering the commercial needs of your business and combining them with targeted actions to counter specific vulnerabilities. It can also help you to action the strategy you decide on, prioritising and implementing key points quickly while keeping you updated on the outcomes throughout.

How it works

Undertaking a verification and auditing project is something that will benefit nearly all companies with significant IP portfolios. The three mantras of ‘check and clean,’ ‘evaluate and clarify’, and ‘strategy and implementation’ provide useful touchstones for any such process. Once you’ve made the decision that you need to get started with this process, what should you look for in an external intellectual property services provider?

When it comes to verification and auditing, you need a partner with extensive experience conducting such assignments. More specifically than that, you need someone who knows the industry you work in very well, not least because the previous experience of your industry can inform their work on your assets and strategy, especially regarding the wider competitive landscape.

Interested in finding out more? Download our white paper 'Best practices in trademark auditing: Getting your rights in order' or contact our team today.