Extending legal protection strategies to the service innovations area: Review and analysis

In highly industrialized countries, innovation and technologies account for about half of economic growth. Patent management plays a crucial role in managing innovation by providing legal protection, especially when supporting factual protection strategies that enable profits from temporary monopolies. However, the requirements for handling innovations have become tougher due to an increase in complexity, shortened innovation cycles as well as the higher risks and costs of generating innovation.

Today, value creation is shifting towards service innovations. However, legal protection strategies still are a novelty in this emerging business field. The paper gives an extensive review and an analysis of the current status quo and its recent history, and outlines how common practices in managing patents can get extended to the service environment.