Virtual Monopoly: Building an Intellectual Property Strategy for Creative Advantage--From Patents to Trademarks, From Copyrights to Design Rights

Rating:
Summary: Virtual Monopoly
Review: Christopher Pike is not your run-of-the mill intellectual property adviser. Although qualified as a patent and trade mark attorney, his experience in dealing with business management issues comes through very directly when reading this book.
It is not always appreciated that there is a whole host of available strategies for businesses which are, knowingly and in some cases not, involved in generating intellectual property. Intellectual property generators often need commercially minded guidance appropriate to their markets and their approach to business as to how their intellectual property can be used to create value. Pike has identified and crystallised models and concepts in a way which makes the grander themes of intellectual property, often held as an impenetrable area for those outside its day-to-day practice, readily understandable. He sets out a useful vocabulary of concepts and terms, describing intellectual property as a currency used in buy-sell relations and for measuring creative advantage.
I suspect that Pike may be at the forefront of a new area of consulting which is much-needed but so-far overlooked. The book he has written will surely be a useful tool to a broad range of readers, particularly those looking for insight into modern approaches to intellectual property strategy. Whilst other books on IP may be found hidden in the law section of a bookshop, this will almost certainly be found in amongst the bestselling management books.

Jerome Spaargaren, Director, Electronic Intellectual Property, London.