The typical enterprise organization can hold thousands of patents, with dozens added each year. This intellectual property has the power to produce revenue for the company, create barriers to entry for competitors, and mitigate risks from other patent holders. Of course, patents also give the holder a temporary monopoly, during which time they can overtake competitors and gain tremendous market share.

It’s true that spontaneous innovation often results in revolutionary ideas. Without freedom to brainstorm, the wheel, the car, Internet calling, digital cameras, and Netflix might not exist. This is often where truly disruptive ideas emerge—ideas that could change the face of business. 

We see it all too often: A major corporation moves forward in their decision to acquire a company for their intellectual property and then investigates the IP involved. Because this is simply the way acquisitions seem to occur, the process has become almost predictable. However, there are so many different potential outcomes to an acquisition decision, and all of these outcomes can be determined by patent analysis.

We’ve discussed in several articles why your IP intelligence should come at the forefront of innovation. We’ve talked about why IP intelligence is a necessary part of your corporate strategy. We looked at reasons to keep IP intelligence within the business sector of your company and not just the legal department. All of these things are crucial to growing and protecting your business.

Very recently, Uber announced its new patent purchasing program, which seeks to expedite the process of purchasing intellectual property. The open application window begins April 24 and closes May 23 of this year. During that time, Uber will likely be inundated with patent portfolios of all types and sizes, as the current patent owners propose a simple price that Uber can then take or walk away from.

When you have a truly innovative idea, it’s only natural that you would want to protect it. Nothing is worse than fleshing out a concept during brainstorming or ideation sessions, only to find that someone has beaten you to the punch.

Microsoft today announced that it would provide indemnification to users of its Azure cloud services who get sued for patent infringement. Fear of intellectual property litigation has the ability to curtail innovation, in this case due to companies’ concern about adopting Microsoft’s Azure service.

High-profile intellectual property purchases have been in the news a lot lately. First, there’s Google, which has turned its focus to buying up patents left and right in an effort to protect their innovations. There’s also Facebook, which recently plunked down a large chunk of change for messaging app WhatsApp. We also mentioned Unilever’s massive purchase of Dollar Shave Club in a previous blog.

All too often, companies face disruptive innovation from their competitors. And all too often, they combat the problem by simply copying the new technology. Whether they roll out a similar product or service, or they throw money behind developing their own version, these companies will spend the majority of their existence simply chasing others.

Whether you take a proactive approach or not, intellectual property is a big part of your corporate strategy. Your choice to take a proactive approach can help you drive revenue and growth—or you can spend your time following your competitors and fighting off litigation. In other words, you can create a sustainable competitive advantage, or you can find contentment being second best (at the very best) while giving up your market share.