What You Can Expect
Intellectual Property and Business Strategy has two broad goals. The first is to provide a broad overview of the tools and techniques that companies can use to protect their IP. You will discuss the premises of patent, copyright, and trademark laws, emphasizing recent developments that influence how companies can best protect their assets. The second goal is to encourage the integration of IP management with the company's broader strategy. How your firm's IP is protected has far-reaching strategic consequences, influencing competition in the industry, the return on investments in R&D, and, ultimately, the financial performance of your company. This program provides a systematic approach to integrating strategic decision making and IP management. Using a framework developed at Harvard University, the program is designed to show how a combination of legal and strategic thinking can help maximize the value of IP. An important goal of the program is to foster a dialog among executives with backgrounds in management and law.
In conversations with your peers, faculty from Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, and through relevant lessons in the classroom, you will improve your ability to:
- Manage IP rights
- Understand how the options to protect IP vary from country to country
- Evaluate the pros and cons of different approaches to IP commercialization
- Integrate approaches to IP management with broader strategic considerations
- Negotiate over IP rights
Negotiations Exercise
The course includes an intense negotiation exercise where you will explore a set of breakthrough strategies for moving from face-to-face confrontation to achieve more productive results. You will learn how to recognize and defuse "hard tactics," wield your power without provoking, and exercise your greatest asset as a negotiator—the power to change the game.