Any Intellectual Property needs to be considered in the context of the overall business and development approach of your business or enterprise.

The more development effort you spend on a product or project, the more you will design your IP strategy towards maintaining a competitive edge. For a "me-too-product" manufacturer, the strategy will focus receiving a maximum of information from third party patent publications, but will also aim for identifying "sweet spots" with minimal risk of being sued for infringing any of the IP rights.

If you are manufacturing in Europe for the European market, IP rights in the USA or in the Far East will obviously not provide a competitive market edge in these regions - however, you will consider "cashing" of licensing revenues there.

Once you have established an overall approach to IP rights, any developments (i.e. innovative projects) will need a more specific "project strategy" to allow making coherent, consistent and choiceful decisions when defining the development path and deploying the tactical tools and elements, like:

• is the amount of time spent on understanding competitors patents appropriate;
• should the project be delayed to get a broader IP protection;
• should the competitors be kept away or should they pay money;
• and so on.