Industry 4.0: The challenges to intellectual property in Manufacturing

EasyChair Preprint no. 382

Abstract

Intellectual Property (IP) is increasingly recognised as a paramount intangible asset influencing the companies’ value, corporate strategies and its management. This paper focuses on the impact of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) on the management of IP in inter-organisational interconnected collaborative networks. Such interconnected networks will allow groups of companies, often competitors and customers, to share data and to collaborate in the design, development and manufacture of complex products and services, exchanging large amounts of proprietary technical data.

This article is part of a larger research project focused in the UK manufacturing industry which relies on an in-depth study of IP management in the UK manufacturing supply chain to critically assess the current practices and to provide recommendations to mitigate the challenges related to IP in this new and complex collaborative setting.

The study concludes that IP and contractual tools deployed in this new environment must be underpinned by the business strategy and the business model. In addition, changes to organisational structures are necessary to bring together functions that typically operate in silos in many manufacturing businesses, namely: engineering, information technologies, commercial and legal departments.

Keyphrases: Business Strategy., Fourth Industrial Revolution, Intellectual Property

@Booklet{EasyChair:382,
  author = {Marcos Kauffman and Marcelo Negri Soares},
  title = {Industry 4.0: The challenges to intellectual property in Manufacturing},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 382},
  doi = {10.29007/zsvw},
  year = {EasyChair, 2018}}