Growth through a Strong IP Strategy
Italian R&D company Eidon is a great example of using a strong IP strategy to facilitate growth. Through its activities of research, Eidon can acquire IP rights to technologies that it may not have had access to without customer contracts. New IP can then be used for access to new markets, through which Eidon can have the opportunity to secure new contracts. Eidon’s solution also brings with it many cross-licensing opportunities with its customers. All of these advantages provide solutions for customers while giving Eidon new possibilities with which to carry out research and development, find better solutions, attract new customers and maintain its position as a leading developer of softwares.
IP Management
As a research outsourcing firm, Eidon often faces the dilemma of managing new IP obtained through its contracts while at the same time taking into account the requirements of its customers. Often the interests of customers and R&D centers do not converge when it comes to patentable knowledge. Customers want the exclusive right of exploitation, while the R&D organization usually wants to use the acquired knowledge for further research and development. Acknowledging this problem, Eidon has adopted a compromise strategy that uses an interesting mix of different IP tools, which reflects the complexity of its contract research activities. Combined with maintaining the confidentiality, this strategy protects the primary interests of both sides and is based on two elements: the recognition of Eidon’s Intellectual property rights (IPRs) in basic technology and the recognition of the customer’s potential wish to secure IPRs in a specific application.
Trademarks
Since its founding, Eidon has used trademark protection to create a strong external image and a solid corporate identity. A trademark application has been registered for Eidon’s name and logo in Italy.
Patents
Eidon has filed patent applications with the European Patent Office (EPO) in many countries to protect original systems resulting from different R&D contracts carried out in cooperation with industrial partners in industrial sectors such as: ceramics, chemical/petrochemical, food, pharmaceutics, textile, wine treatment, wood, metal industry etc. The application process is carried out with the advice of external legal experts, who are responsible for correctly implementing different IP protection tools. At the present time, the company has 3 patents.
Eidon regards patenting as being very important for innovative solutions. However, in the case of incremental innovations, when time-to-market becomes more critical than technology issues, it considers that patenting is not the most advantageous solution. Eidon believes that this poses a risk for disclosure of strategic information which is easily accessible to third parties, who can opportunely improve the innovation and therefore making the patent protection worthless. Therefore, when software intensive solutions are involved, Eidon chooses to rely on copyright protection.
Copyright
Eidon’s original software is protected by copyright. Access rights to software, based normally on an exclusive license model, do not usually grant access to the source code, which may be granted only in exceptional cases and can be made subject to separate agreements.
Confidential information
Confidentiality between Eidon and its clients ensures that third parties will not have access to any trade secrets or new intellectual property (IP) that may result from the research contract. This diminishes the risks of infringement and early disclosure of new technologies.
Business Results
Through its IP management strategy, Eidon has been able to expand into a leading and respected engineering contract research company in Italy with global reach. Starting out small, Eidon now has developed more than 250 nationally funded research contracts and over a dozen European research and technology transfers in over thirty different manufacturing sectors. Eidon has continually built on its prior successes, using IP gained through R&D contracts to offer clients advanced solutions while creating a strong market position for itself.
