On the know-how package

Abstract

The technological heritage is one of the most valuable assets of any R&D organisation. Although the technology is all pervasive, its development and application are still fraught with problems for both users and manufacturers. Technology, however, does not work in isolation. It necessarily acts in conjunction with one another and adds value as an integrated system.The integration of technology, however, does not happen by itself. It rather needs conscious efforts to differentiate with respect to what should be integrated with what and for which purpose. It thus entails the interaction between the world of 'Research', the world of 'Manufacture and Product Application' and the world of IPR and its protection. In view of the advantages of the potentially opportunistic consequences of global economy, there has been revolution in the market for newer innovative know-how packages. It is vital for our business to be fully acquainted with the commercial opportunities and costs that have arisen from this. Knowledge packages reflects the knowledge captured by the organisations that create them. These packages basically are expected to comprise knowledge of the underlying technical foundations, specific engineering fields, managerial processes, details of the manufacturing environment, users, channels and markets. In reference to the market and context of the application, it,however, leads to the contrasting problems in the management of innovation and its protection. These problems are generally beset with difficulties besides in transferring detailed knowledge, generated by the research and innovation, to the manufacturing site up-stream, to the individuals charged with designing the equipment and to the protection for business development.Intellectual Property Assets can provide the incentives for innovation, product development and technological changes. It is, however, vital that the organisations get itself fully acquainted with the IPR related issues,understands how IPR are accessible, affordable, accepted and enforced internationally and over all maximise the returns from the knowledge driven economy.The paper intends to discuss the R & D activities that are aimed at the accumulation of specialised expertise in well defined domains and the integration of these domains into coherent system that works well in theapplication context. The paper differentiates the technology integration process with respect to the project and the product performance. The paper illustrates the dependence of technology integration on various factors and describes some observation of the project performance with regard to various Intellectual Property matters including protecting IPRs from infringements and deploying Intellectual Property Assets (IPAs) in business development.