Reaping value from intellectual property: DuPont's strategic approach achieves global growth

Abstract

Purpose

Explains how companies can learn from the best practices DuPont uses to aggressively manage its intellectual property and grow its licensing revenues.

Design/methodology/approach

This case extracts three key success factors from the DuPont approach and describes how they are applied in practice.

Findings

At a strategic level, companies need to have a corporate level commitment to capturing and growing value from its intellectual assets – a proactive approach, not a passive, opportunistic approach. Companies need to focus resources on facilitating the creation of licensing revenue growth – either centrally, as at DuPont, or within every substantial business unit that “owns” licensable intellectual assets. And, companies need to create incentives for business units to devote attention and resources to its intellectual property portfolio.

Practical implications

Smaller technology companies have a strong motivation to aggressively manage their intellectual property and grow their licensing revenues, because scale and the related networks that scale creates enhance a company's ability to capture future growth and value from its IP portfolio.

Originality/value

All companies with valuable intellectual property can learn from the best practices of the industry leaders.

Citation

Sterling, J. and Murray, C.D. (2007), "Reaping value from intellectual property: DuPont's strategic approach achieves global growth", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 36-42. https://doi.org/10.1108/10878570710717272