1. Organization
The intellectual property management department of a foreign enterprise is generally under the direct jurisdiction of the head office manager and is the supporting unit of the technical and management departments in the enterprise. Intellectual property management department, technical department and business department * * * together form the core of the enterprise, and together with production department and financial department form the highest organization and management institution of the enterprise. For example, IBM, Mitsubishi and Fuji all belong to centralized management organizations.
(1) IBM, the centralized management organization of IBM, has an intellectual property management headquarters, which is responsible for handling all intellectual property matters related to IBM's business, such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, semiconductor chips, layout-design protection, trade secrets, fonts and other intellectual property matters; Intellectual property management headquarters has two major departments: the legal department and the patent department. The legal department is responsible for relevant legal affairs; The patent department is responsible for patent affairs. The patent department consists of five technical fields, each of which is managed by a patent lawyer. As IBM is a multinational group company, the Intellectual Property Management Department mainly has research institutes in the United States and branches in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. For countries without branches, first, they are managed by agents of the national intellectual property management department in the region; First, the intellectual property management departments of neighboring countries are responsible. For example, countries without intellectual property management departments in the Asia-Pacific region are managed by Japanese intellectual property management departments as a whole;
The intellectual property headquarters of IBM has strict requirements for the intellectual property departments of subsidiaries around the world. In addition to making business reports to the headquarters, the intellectual property departments of local subsidiaries should also implement the unified intellectual property policies of the headquarters and accept the strong functional management of the headquarters.
(2) Mitsubishi Corporation and Fujitsu Corporation's organization Mitsubishi Corporation has an intellectual property headquarters, which consists of three departments: Patent Department, Foreign Intellectual Property Department and Planning Department.
The patent department has a close relationship with the R&D department, which is responsible for assisting researchers and technicians to obtain intellectual property rights, protecting the company's rights and preventing the company from infringing on the rights of others, and setting up overseas personnel to be responsible for patent applications and lawsuits in the local area;
The planning department is responsible for formulating internal regulations related to intellectual property rights, supervising the management and implementation of intellectual property rights, and supporting intellectual property branches among enterprises.
Foreign-related departments are responsible for the use of intellectual property rights of the company, foreign negotiations, litigation and infringement coordination.
Fujitsu is managed by the Patent Headquarters, which consists of five departments, namely, Patent Management Department, Patent Business Department, Patent I Department, Patent II Department and Technical Investigation Department. Each business headquarters has a patent promotion department, which is headed by senior personnel from the business headquarters and is responsible for patent planning and promotion.
⑶ Intellectual Property Management Department of Toshiba Company, the organizational structure of Toshiba Company, consists of intellectual property headquarters, four research institutes, 1 1 business headquarters, research institutes, patent departments, departments and groups under each business headquarters. This department has seven departments, namely:
Planning department: responsible for promoting the medium and long-term intellectual property strategy of the whole company and managing intellectual property administrative affairs;
Technical and legal department: responsible for handling intellectual property litigation;
Software protection department: responsible for the registration, application and compensation of software copyright;
Patents 1 and 2: responsible for the overall management of technology contracts;
Patent application department: centralized management of domestic and foreign patent applications;
Trademark department of design: responsible for the application and registration of design and trademark;
Patent information center: responsible for managing patent information and establishing electronic application system.
All research institutes and business divisions have intellectual property departments, which are directly subordinate to the deputy director or chief engineer in charge of technical work. Mainly responsible for the intellectual property administrative affairs of research institutes and divisions, and all the business from patent discovery, patent investigation, patent relationship diagram making to patent application at home and abroad in the initial stage of product development.
⑷ The intellectual property law department of Canon Company implements hierarchical management ―― it is divided into product category and technology category, and the product category consists of four departments: intellectual property law planning department, intellectual property law management department, patent business department and patent information department; There are seven patent departments in the technical category, which manage patents according to technical classification.
Bayer, one of the largest chemical enterprises in Germany, has a patent committee and a patent office, which are parallel. The Patent Committee consists of production, scientific research, technology application and the Patent Office, and its duties are:
① Analyze and judge which invention projects can apply for patents abroad;
(2) which country to apply for;
(3) managing the granted patents;
(4) According to the patent project registration form, decide which projects' patents need to be kept and which can be abandoned.
The patent office is directly led by the company headquarters and consists of two departments, one is the patent department and the other is the licensing contract and technical coordination department. The main responsibilities of the patent department:
(1) Apply for a patent until patent management is authorized;
(2) before applying for a patent, before the product is put on the market, if the same technology is found, trying to buy the patent right of others;
(3) To deal with patent disputes, one is to settle them through consultation; The second is through litigation.
(4) Business contacts with courts at all levels.
The licensing contract and technical coordination section * * * is composed of eight people, and is responsible for licensing contracts, including patent licensing, technical secrets and technical cooperation. Daily management work mainly includes:
(1) Accept the inquiry for technology licensing, organize licensing negotiations and sign relevant contracts;
(2) Technical cooperation, signing contracts with companies that need to use Bayer technology.
The responsibilities of the intellectual property management departments of various companies are similar, and their basic responsibilities can be divided into ten items:
(1) patent information management;
(2) Inventing excavation work;
③ Apply for patent work;
(4) Concluding a patent licensing contract;
⑤ Managing patent rights;
⑥ Handling patent disputes;
⑦ Comprehensive management of trademark and other intellectual property rights;
(8) Invention Award;
Pet-name ruby patent education;
Attending contact with the patent office or lawyer;
It is worth noting that enterprises in the United States, Japan and Germany attach great importance to patent information work. For example, IBM regularly announces that three of the four main responsibilities of patent managers are related to intelligence, such as:
(1) Collect and master the related patent information and technical information of subordinate companies and the activities of various professional departments;
(2) according to the information to decide whether to apply for a patent, suggest the scope of the applicant's country, and provide relevant business advice;
③ Adjust the number of applications according to the annual patent application plan expected by the headquarters;
(4) Collect patent information and technical dynamic information of IBM and other companies, and conduct targeted intellectual property negotiations.
In addition, the intellectual property department of Hitachi regards patent information management as the top priority. Canon has 1 1 departments responsible for intellectual property management, and the Patent Information Department is one of them. Toshiba has a patent information center in the intellectual property department; With the development of intellectual property headquarters, Mitsubishi Company separated the patent information center originally under the jurisdiction of the patent department from the patent part and became an independent company.
German companies, such as Bayer, do patent information investigation before applying for patents and putting products on the market.
The above statement illustrates the importance of patent information from another angle.
Secondly, the comparison of intellectual property management systems of foreign enterprises.
Intellectual property as the company's operating resources. In order to effectively carry out various businesses, the patent department needs sufficient financial support. If the research results of enterprises cannot be fully protected, it is actually a waste of research investment and development funds. This idea is the knowledge of IBM, Hitachi and Canon. The intellectual property management system of foreign enterprises can be roughly divided into three categories: one is basically a hierarchical centralized management system, such as IBM, and the other is a decentralized management system, such as Toshiba; The other is the system of management by rank, such as Canon. They are distinctive.
Its uniqueness: whether it is centralized management, decentralized management or determinant management, the intellectual property management department is in the core position of the management of the head office, closely linked with the technical department and the management department, and all authorized intellectual property work is managed here, becoming the think tank department of the head office.
(1) The centralized management system is characterized by the fact that the intellectual property management departments of the whole company operate according to the unified intellectual property policy, protect the overall interests of the head office to the maximum extent, and work smoothly in product development, manufacturing and trading activities, which is mainly reflected in the management mode of intellectual property transfer, authorization and re-authorization. In other words, the cost of research and development is paid by the head office to the subsidiary in advance, and all matters after the patent right and authorization are handled by the intellectual property management department of the head office, such as IBM.
(2) Decentralized management system is characterized by full authorization. Full authorization refers to full authorization under the unified management of the intellectual property department. Decentralized management is aimed at various research institutes and committees. Its advantage is that all business departments and research institutes limit the number of patent applications according to product characteristics and decide the intellectual property budget. However, after obtaining the patent right, how to use intellectual property rights, handle disputes, negotiate with foreign countries, raise objections and other matters are all managed by the intellectual property department, such as Toshiba. Toshiba has not only a domestic intellectual property system, but also an overseas intellectual property system, which is also divided into two parts. One is to set up patent offices in Washington and the west coast; Some subsidiaries in Europe and America set up intellectual property committees, which are responsible for formulating intellectual property management rules for local enterprises and discussing intellectual property issues regularly. The Intellectual Property Department coordinates the contact between business divisions through committees and seminars, and has the right to decide who is responsible for intellectual property work in each business division.
⑶ The decisive intellectual property management system is characterized by managing intellectual property rights according to technical categories and product categories. Implement patent management according to technical categories to avoid repeated development of technologies; Cooperate with product strategy management patents of various business divisions. The Intellectual Property Law Department centrally manages all affairs after authorization, including the use, negotiation and litigation of rights. The Legal Department sends its own personnel to participate in product law meetings organized by various business divisions in the company or operation department meetings organized according to various problems, so as to understand the relevant situation of technology and products, make the legal system run through all stages from product development to product sales, and use intellectual property laws and regulations to improve the effectiveness of solving problems.
Finally, we should pay attention to the intellectual property management system of Bayer Company in Germany, which is characterized by that the patent office modifies the patent application documents submitted by the company's inventors, and the patent committee of the company decides which patent office to apply for according to the situation. So as to ensure a relatively high success rate of patent authorization; At the same time, reduce infringement and invalid requests; The implementation of patents is mainly within the company, so the probability of handling patent disputes is correspondingly reduced. ? Third, the intellectual property management system of foreign enterprises.
The intellectual property management system covers a wide range, mainly focusing on the ownership of property rights, incentive mechanism, the use of intellectual property rights, the handling of intellectual property disputes and intellectual property education. Because the situation of each enterprise is different, each enterprise has its own emphasis on formulating enterprise management system, which is worth learning from.
1. Ownership of intellectual property rights
Companies in various countries have formulated corresponding rules and regulations on the basis of observing international conventions and patent laws in various countries. Such as IBM, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Fujitsu, etc. They all have intellectual property rights by signing contracts or formulating social regulations.
(1) signing agreement IBM signed a "consent form on information, inventions and crops" with employees; Signed with subsidiaries: comprehensive technology contract. Require all employees to transfer all intellectual property rights of these achievements to the company as long as they obtain confidential information from the company, or information extracted from inventions, works and other creations completed by former employees, or achievements arising from the performance of their duties (business); For the employees of IBM branch in Japan, it is also required to fill in the consent form of invention transfer as a condition for entering IBM company. Since the head office provides R&D expenses for subsidiaries, the intellectual property rights of its R&D achievements must be transferred to the head office, which centrally manages the intellectual property rights of subsidiaries from all over the country, and re-provides related technologies to subsidiaries through re-authorization, and the trademark use rights are basically similar. Each subsidiary shall pay a certain amount of intellectual property royalties to the head office from its turnover.
(2) Social rules stipulate that the social rules formulated by Japanese companies will be owned by the company, and even the inventions within one year after leaving the company will be notified to the company, and the company will decide the ownership of property rights. For example, according to Hitachi's social regulations, employees' service inventions and off-duty inventions are owned by the company, and off-duty inventions must also be reported to the company, and whether it is necessary or not can be decided. If an employee completes a service invention during his/her employment and obtains a patent right within one year after his/her resignation, he/she shall also notify the company, and the company shall decide whether to use the patent.
Both Mitsubishi and Fujitsu require employees to transfer their inventions to the company. Specific social regulations, such as those of Mitsubishi Corporation, stipulate that all the patent rights of service inventions made by employees belong to the company, and off-duty inventions and off-business inventions are transferred in coordination with employees according to the needs of the company. Fujitsu requires employees to transfer their rights to inventions, research-related patents or utility models when they are engaged in inventions or research projects related to the company's business.
2. Establish an incentive mechanism for inventors.
According to the data recently released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, among the 1999 enterprises that have applied for the most patents in the world, 1999 is among them, and half of them are American enterprises. This is closely related to the government's scientific and technological policies to encourage invention and creation, and also closely related to the incentive system implemented by the company. According to the inventor's achievements, companies have produced corresponding cumulative scoring system, grade reward system and various commendation systems. For example, the incentive policies of IBM and Hitachi have their own characteristics, making invention a social fashion.
⑴ Cumulative scoring system is an award method established by IBM to motivate inventors. The feature of bonus points is to give bonus points to inventors who apply for patents, with 3 points for invention patents and 1 point for inventions published in technical bulletin. Accumulated points 12 points, and 600 yuan Invention Performance Award will be awarded $3. If the inventor's first patent application is accepted, the first patent application award will be awarded, with a bonus of 1 500 USD; For the second invention, the invention application award is $500.
⑵ Various awards of Japanese enterprises generally include first application award, invention application award, compensation application award and special contribution award. According to the situation of the enterprise, each company has formulated corresponding rules and regulations, that is, rewarding inventors. As long as the intellectual property is used, the inventor can get a bonus, even if someone dies or has left his job. For example, Mitsubishi and Hitachi implement incentives until the rights are terminated; Fujitsu and Toshiba implement a graded reward system, with a minimum bonus of 4,000 yen for an invention and a maximum bonus of 60 ~ 1 10,000 yen per year. Fujitsu is divided into seven grades and Toshiba is divided into five grades.
3. Intellectual property education and training
In Japan, intellectual property education has two meanings. One is to educate all new employees or employees at different levels on intellectual property legal knowledge. The second is the training of intellectual property personnel in this department. The courses of the first-level education include the introduction of patent knowledge and the writing knowledge of patent specifications. , such as Hitachi and Mitsubishi; On the other hand, Fujitsu conducts intellectual property management education for administrative personnel of various departments to understand the concept and importance of patents. In the process of intellectual property education, intellectual property management departments play an important role. The courses of secondary education include trademarks, copyrights, technology contracts, case studies, patent information, patent writing and patent management. And create conditions for employees to pass the patent agent qualification examination or send personnel to the European and American patent offices for rotation training.
In short, the intellectual property management of foreign modern enterprises has the following characteristics:
First, intellectual property management is the core part of organizational strategy;
Second, set up a considerable number of intellectual property management teams;
Third, the improvement of the reward mechanism;
Fourth, the communication of intelligence work is smooth;
The most important thing is that enterprises must master effective patents in order to obtain long-term benefits.