Andersen, ICM join to help clients profit from intellectual property

Helping clients profit from intangible assets is the goal of Arthur Andersen and the ICM Group, who will jointly offer services for locating and leveraging an organizations' intellectual capital.

Andersen and ICM plan to offer a range of services to help clients locate and place value on intellectual assets like patents, licenses, trademarks, copyrights and the know-how of employees, and will help them implement systems and processes to best manage those assets.

ICM brings to the table exposure to the field and a first-hand understanding of intellectual asset management best practices. Andersen provides an understanding of the people, processes and technologies that can manage intellectual assets and improve business performance.

"Our job is to help clients figure out what they've got, what it's worth to them, determine what they should do with it," according to Julie Davis, co-leader of Arthur Andersen Business Consulting's intellectual asset management practice.

The size and cost of the services varies, depending on the amount and perceived wealth of an organization's intellectual assets, said Davis. Typically clients pay upwards of $25,000 for varying levels of analysis of their intellectual property portfolio.

Untapped intellectual assets can easily generate unforseen profits and substantially impact business strategy, according to Davis. For example, a telecommunications firm with a patented super-absorbent material for use in underwater cables now plans to license that material to companies that make diapers. IBM alone has built licensing revenues into a billion-dollar revenue stream, some coming from technologies it no longer uses.

Avoiding intellectual asset MIS-management is equally important. Davis also pointed to a large technology company that offered early retirement packages to its engineers. Before the company knew what had happened, all the brainpower behind the development of a highly-profitable product line had walked out the door, with no replacements and freely available to the competition.