Growing value and shrinking budget?

Budgets have been slashed and IP departments are under increased scrutiny. But you don't have to sacrifice your trademark rights in order to cut costs, says CPA Global's Worldwide Director of Trademarks Brigitta Best

  We operate in an industry that exists to protect and drive innovation; isn't it about time we translated that same thirst for modernisation into the IP sector's own systems and processes? Despite shifts in attitudes to trademark value and improvements in the technology with which both companies and their law firms manage rights, the fundamental infrastructure that exists to register, renew and enforce trademarks on a global scale is essentially unchanged. Even when frustrated by how cumbersome or inefficient a process it is, companies have been generally powerless to do much to change it. Constrained by time and lack of resources, corporate IP managers often feel that they have no choice but to follow the same old trademark practices for fear of exposing their valuable rights to greater risk.