IP CLASSIFICATION AND PROTECTION
SECURE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Companies are facing complexity from many areas during the development and launch of complex products and services. Market opportunities exist for good ideas, but they may be in many locations, and they may involve variations to serve those markets. In addition, IP is being created that captures the product complexity, including specifications, bills-of-materials, requirements, geometry, models, etc. Finally, the processes that will be used to define, model and execute will need to be properly managed in order to launch the products globally and simultaneously. All of this intellectual property (IP) is what drives the firm’s competitive advantage in the market. Therefore the firm’s ability to leverage and protect this IP without exceptions is critical to the company’s short-term and long-term success.
Successful operation of a multi-party Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system includes proper protection of the intellectual property (IP) of the parties involved. The IP may belong to a commercial organization or its disclosure may be restricted by a government. In all cases, the need is to prevent exposure of information to unauthorized individuals or information transfer to unauthorized locations.