Intellectual property (IP) is pivotal to growing a nation’s economy and fostering innovation. Therefore, IP is granted robust legal protection to spur research, development, and creativity.

Thus, the top intellectual property management software allows organizations to manage, track, and optimize their creative and treasured resources.

What Are the Top Intellectual Property Management Software Solutions Right Now?

• Fortra/Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration
• IPfolio
• FoundationIP
• AcclaimIP
• Wellspring for IP Management
   

What Is Intellectual Property Management Software?

Intellectual property management software is an application designed to assist corporations and law firms in IP portfolio management. Its functions encompass everything required to manage IP assets, including the ability to store, organize, and track them effectively.

These tools also make it easy to prepare and secure IP rights through the stages of invention disclosure, instituting IP filings, and litigation. Moreover, these applications place core IP features into a centralized platform for streamlined administration.

IP management software tracks valued intellectual resources like patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, royalties, licenses, and overall brand management.

They also facilitate patent research, which lets organizations better evaluate their competitive landscape.

Benefits

• Minimizing time-consuming IP operations through automation.
• Making it easier to detect the theft of IP.
• Managing the complexity of IP.
• Improves the efficiency of the IP lifecycle process.
   

What Features and Functionality Should I Look For in Intellectual Property Management Software?

IP management software aims to empower businesses to maximize the use of their intangible assets. Here are some of the core functionality found in IP management software:

Provide Tools For the Effective Management of IP Assets

Overseeing IP resources requires administration processes that ensure intangible assets are efficiently and effectively delivered through these activities.  

• IP portfolio management
• Document management
• Deadline management
• Disclosure management
• Renewal management
• Patent and trademark tracking
• Report and dashboard
   

Facilitate the Intellectual Property Lifecycle

Many things go into effectively managing and maximizing a stable of IP assets. It involves many activities, like filing for patents or renewing license contracts, preparing disclosure agreements, and processing client license payments.

IP management software facilitates these tasks while tracking the migration of ideas through the IP workflow.

Automate Repetitive IP Tasks

Automation provides necessary tools for effective enforcement of IP rights. IP management software automates rote and repetitive tasks, especially communication between the myriad of players involved in creating, maintaining, and enforcing IP.

Map IP Relationship Rights

Patent pipeline visibility is needed to leverage the effective exploitation of IP. This enables businesses to understand which products contain patented technology and which IP is linked to licensing agreements. This is achieved through data visualization and graphical dashboards for a holistic view of the IP ecosystem.

Fortra’s Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration

While most customers and the general public know Fortra’s Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration as a data rights management company with a diverse product portfolio, the organization also excels in IP management. Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration’s suite of software products is ideal for companies with diverse IP portfolios. Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration provides organizations the wherewithal to track their IP closely across various platforms.

As a testament to its robust ability to safeguard IP, General Electric (GE) tapped Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration to protect its substantial IP assets, especially with GE’s global IP footprint dispersed worldwide.

Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration has developed deep competencies in protecting data wherever it travels — whether at rest, in use, or in transit.

Most organizations forge partnerships and high-level collaborations with external stakeholders, suppliers, and contractors. This inevitably results in plenty of file and information sharing. Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration safeguards these collaborations by securing, encrypting, and tracking sensitive information, whether company secrets, IP data, or end-user personally identifiable information (PII).

Pokémon found itself in this conundrum when the popularity of its augmented reality game exploded, putting the protection of its proprietary and user data under pressure. However, they turned to Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration to secure end-user PII and safeguard their IP, especially when employees used them on cloud collaboration platforms.

Core Features

• Facilitating and securing third-party collaboration.
• Providing seamless integration by baking security into business operations.
• Active file protection through centralized control and granular visibility.
• Frictionless security that travels to seamlessly prevent intellectual property infringement. 
   

Pros

• Features extend beyond IP workflows to include data rights management and IP protection.
• The ability to create enforcement policies based on predefined parameters and pre-existing permission structures such as file location, recipient, securer, etc.
   

Cons

• It isn’t a traditional IP management software.
   

IPfolio

IPfolio from Clarivate is a cloud-based solution that provides comprehensive, end-to-end IP lifecycle management from a centralized hub. It is built for corporate IP teams that manage global IP assets, empowering them to exert maximum control over their IP resources with minimum effort.

Core Features:

• IPSync feature that aligns your US patent records with the USPTO database.
• Centralized hub to access domain names, inventions, patents, and copyrights.
• Easily integrates with eSignature and common enterprise legal management (ELM) systems.
• Highly automated workflow with task-based assignments. 
• Dashboard with a customizable interface and configurable options.
• Robust reports that automate due date calculations.
   

Pros

• Allow IP assets to be managed centrally while collaborating across departments. 
• Lightweight and accessible
• Fosters collaboration across divisions with the advantage of being centrally managed. 
• Interactive patent review process that includes an online investor portal. 
   

Cons

• It can be complicated to understand for some users.
• Document management could be better integrated into the system.
   

FoundationIP

FoundationIP is designed to assist organizations at every step of the IP lifecycle. FoundationIP is ideal for high-performing law firms, helping them to improve their efficiency while reducing risk at each stage of the IP process.

Core Features

• Automate tasks like searching trademark and patent databases, including the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) office. 
• Facilitating docketing with real-time access to USPTO Private PAIR to discover the status of pending IP applications.
• Creating custom graphs and charts to highlight key analytics. 
• Prebuilt templates that include out-of-box forms, such as 150+ managed USPTO forms and over 100 system reports.
• Powerful report builder to create custom reports and email message templates.  
   

Pros

• Effectively streamlining the IP management process.
• Provide value to clients with in-built collaboration tools.
   

Cons

• It requires too much administration for small firms.
   

AcclaimIP

AcclaimIP provides an online intellectual property system to assist various IP stakeholders, including law firms, patent owners, and patent researchers.

The software is geared toward helping agencies and enterprises perform voluminous patent information research and analysis through its automated operations.

Core Features

• Classification and fingerprinting technology to quickly identify the most valuable patents in a portfolio.
• In addition to search functions, AcclaimIP research helps you to determine or evaluate patentability.
• Reports that cover core areas of the patent process, such as patent analysis, prosecution analytics, competitor, and technology analysis.
• Available as a standalone product or integrated with other ancillary IP tools like docketing platforms such as PATTSY WAVE® and Anaqua Services.
   

Pros

• Provides quality curated patent data for researchers and stakeholders with the ability to search over 100 million patents worldwide.
• Delivers actionable intelligence.
• Fast, intuitive, and comprehensive.
   

Wellspring for IP Management

Wellspring provides comprehensive IP management software suited for companies of any size. It assists corporate and in-house counsel in organizations to manage their growing portfolio of inventions, IP licensing, and contracts.

Wellspring’s deep IP experience is suited for in-house patent counsel or corporate legal counsel spanning various industries.

Core Features

• Customizable, integrated online disclosure forms with docketing systems.
• Automatic updates and notifications for critical IP events, such as when new IP records are created, online payments, etc. 
• IP contract management, from first draft to executed contracts, in a central location.
• Intellectual Property Valuation that includes market research and analysis. 
   

Pros

• Flexible and configurable, allowing you to start with what you need and add features you want as you go.
• Round-the-clock access to professional support and critical data.
• Streamlined IP process management.
   

Cons

It needs a feature to search for invention titles. 
 

Learn How Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration Can Help With Your IP Management

Businesses need to increasingly manage complex security requirements. Among other benefits, Digital Guardian Secure Collaboration's ability to secure intellectual property, trade secrets, and other sensitive data can help give you peace of mind that your IP is kept safe at all times, wherever it travels.

To learn more, book a demo with us today.