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🎯 IP Management Pulse #56
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Your inbox-insider from Prof. Wurzer every two weeks
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Here are the hot topics from 26. February 2026 - 11. March 2026
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NEWS
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Legal data mining or IP theft at scale | IP portfolios in M&A deals in the creative industry | The application of non-conventional trademarks in high fashion | Fixing the "leaking pipeline" of women inventors
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RESOURCES
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The Online Marketing Strategy Configurator | How to use the IPBA Connect Platform as an IP expert
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DEEP DIVES
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Visible expertise: how IP professionals turn expertise into credibility and business opportunities | Davos AI Signals for 2026: When “Adoption” Stops Being the Question | IP Awareness Training for Inhouse-Functions
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IP MANAGEMENT LEARNINGS
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Navigating Design Rights in Integrated IP Portfolios
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🤗 🍵 I wish you an exciting and informative read. I look forward to your comments and our exchange on LinkedIn.
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Legal data mining or IP theft at scale
In the world of AI models a new training method has gained notoriety: distillation. Distillation means that companies train their models by using bigger models, typically created by competitors, as providers of training data. The resulting models remain weaker than their training partners, but can be offered at a lower price due to strongly reduced training costs. This method is most prominently employed by Chinese companies which use bigger models from the US for training purposes and were recently accused by Anthropic to “illicitly extract Claude’s capabilities”.
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What IP experts can learn from it
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For IP experts, the key insight is that the competitive value of AI systems increasingly lies in their functional capabilities rather than in their underlying code. If these capabilities can be replicated through techniques like distillation, traditional IP protection mechanisms may become harder to enforce. IP consultancy therefore needs to consider not only legal protection of software and datasets, but also technical safeguards that prevent capability extraction. In the AI economy, protecting innovation increasingly means protecting the behaviour of systems rather than only their formal components.
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Background information on the IPBA Connect platform
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Knowledge Management in the 🔎IP Management Glossary
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IP portfolios in M&A deals in the creative industry
In the movie and streaming industries, recently many important mergers between studios and broadcasters are happening. The latest was the acquisition of Warner Bros. by Paramount after outbidding Netflix. A big part of such deals is the creation of larger IP portfolios and streaming libraries then the competition, which forms the basis to gain market shares in the competitive streaming landscape. In the case of Warnes Bros. a total of 30 Oscar nominations for their 2025 movie portfolio sweetens the deal.
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What IP experts can learn from it
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For IP experts, the key insight is that in creative industries the commercial value of companies often lies primarily in their intellectual property portfolios. Film franchises, characters, scripts, and distribution rights form long-term assets that can generate revenue across multiple channels such as cinema, streaming, merchandising, and licensing. IP due diligence therefore becomes a central element of M&A transactions in these sectors. Understanding ownership structures, licensing agreements, territorial rights, and franchise potential is essential for correctly assessing the value and risks of such deals. In industries driven by content and franchises, strategic IP management increasingly determines competitive advantage.
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Background information on the IPBA Connect platform
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Strategic IP Transactions in the 🔎IP Management Glossary
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The application of non-conventional trademarks in high fashion
Trademark laws are constantly evolving and adjusting to the ways how offerings are displayed and sold via digital channels. One new tool that gets increasingly used by consumer-oriented brands is non-conventional trademarks such as 3D trademarks. And the current case of Hermes successfully enforcing its mark protecting the Birkin bag in India shows that they enable the defence of market positions even in the digital sphere. This may lead to a wider strategic adoption of such trademarks in India and worldwide.
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What IP experts can learn from it
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For IP experts, the key insight is that in industries such as high fashion the commercial identity of products increasingly lies in their visual form rather than in their brand labels alone. Shapes and design elements can function as powerful brand identifiers and therefore become valuable IP assets. Strategically securing protection for such elements allows companies to defend iconic products even where traditional word marks provide limited protection. Non-conventional trademarks therefore expand the toolbox of brand protection and enable companies to protect distinctive product appearances across both physical and digital markets.
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Background information on the IPBA Connect platform
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Patagonia: Leading the Way in Green Fashion on the 📑IP Management Letters
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Fixing the "leaking pipeline" of women inventors
A recent EPO study shines a light on the gender divide among inventors and provides valuable hints how to close it. While the share of women in R&D and STEM is constantly growing, their share among inventors remains considerably low. And consistent patterns can be observed. In areas with collaborative research, the number of women inventors is significantly higher. Can the increasing need for collaborative research be a catalyst to fix the "leaking pipeline"? And could it help to move away from the idea of a "lone inventor genius"?
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What IP experts can learn from it
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For IP experts, the key insight is that the image and self-image of inventors is changing along with the structure of modern innovation systems. Complex technologies require interdisciplinary collaboration, and inventions are therefore more often the result of coordinated team efforts rather than individual breakthroughs. IP management practices must adapt accordingly. Clear inventorship processes, transparent contribution documentation, and inclusive innovation cultures become important factors to ensure that contributions are properly recognised. Strengthening collaborative innovation environments may therefore not only improve innovation performance of researchers but also contribute to a more balanced and diverse inventor landscape.
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Resources on the IPBA Connect platform
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Collaborative IP Management on the digital IP lexicon 🧭dIPlex
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In the 🌱Resource Hub, IP experts find ready-to-use playbooks, templates and tools to enhance positioning, visibility and client conversion. This section highlights selected resources and shows how they fit into modern, strategic IP practice.
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IP experts discuss the Online Marketing Strategy Configurator
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“The Online Marketing Strategy Configurator and my consultation with Prof. Alexander Wurzer helped me sharpen my narrative and communicate it more effectively to my ecosystem. They provided valuable insights on how to strategically use LinkedIn for professional communications, ensuring my messaging aligns with my objectives. A highly practical and insightful experience that I highly recommend!”
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After having studied Electronics Engineering in Turkey, Erdem became a Turkish and European patent attorney in 2001 and a Turkish trademark attorney in 2005. Erdem is the founder of Erdem Kaya Patent, one of the most respected IP firms of Turkey, with a team of +50 IP professionals.
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The Online Marketing Strategy Configurator
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The Online Marketing Strategy Configurator is a digital tool designed for IP experts to develop a structured online marketing strategy. It helps define target audiences, positioning, content themes, and channels while aligning activities with the client journey. The result is a tailored roadmap that improves visibility, consistency, and measurable business development outcomes.
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BEST PRACTISE: How to use the IPBA Connect Platform as an IP expert
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“With my live interviews about licence compliance on LinkedIn and my expert page on the digital IP lexicon 🔗dIPlex, I was able to reach new target groups for my services and share my expertise. Using these fast and direct channels enabled a new way of addressing current topics in compliance and responding quickly to feedback and trends.”
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Tomas Geerkens
After leaving the Big 4, Tomas joined Connor to help global licensing teams boost revenue, ensure MFN and contract compliance, and build trust. He uncovers hidden royalty streams, reduces risks and supports the creation of lasting, scalable licensing compliance programs.
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The campaign with Tomas Geerkens on the IPBA Connect platform turned deep licensing compliance expertise into measurable business development. By packaging Tomas’ niche focus into consistent, multi-format assets (blog article, podcast, dIPlex page, LinkedIn Live interviews) mapped to the customer journey, the campaign drove awareness, consideration, evaluation, and conversion, creating a clear path from expert insights to projects.
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Visible Council - the IP Expert Branding Column
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Visible expertise: how IP professionals turn expertise into credibility and business opportunities
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By columnist Giulia Donato, Brand & Communication Consultant at people and brand strategies
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The article argues that IP expertise often remains invisible in the market because IP services function as credence goods — clients cannot easily evaluate quality even after receiving the service. Therefore, IP professionals must communicate their expertise strategically to create signals of competence and trust earlier in the client decision process. Effective communication does not primarily promote services but makes the expert’s thinking and problem-solving approach visible. The article highlights four visibility strategies: making reasoning observable, turning knowledge into entry points (e.g., posts and white papers), building authority through consistent topic ownership, and gaining credibility through recognition in professional ecosystems. When expertise becomes visible in these ways, it strengthens credibility and ultimately supports business development opportunities.
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My Favorites from the 📝IP Business Academy Blog
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Davos AI Signals for 2026: When “Adoption” Stops Being the Question
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The article discusses signals from the World Economic Forum in Davos suggesting that by 2026 the main question about AI is no longer whether companies will adopt it, but how organizations will restructure around it. Access to powerful models is no longer the primary bottleneck. Instead, companies must redesign processes, decision rights, infrastructure, and governance to create real value. The discussion also highlighted growing scepticism about the usefulness of the “AGI” benchmark and a shift toward focusing on practical capabilities of powerful AI systems. Progress may require new architectures beyond simple model scaling, while organizations must integrate AI into workflows, knowledge systems, and strategy to capture its economic potential.
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My Favorite from the 🎧Podcast IP Management Voice
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#78 IP Awareness Training for Inhouse-Functions
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This podcast episode explains why IP knowledge must extend beyond the IP department. Effective IP awareness training helps employees across functions — such as engineering, marketing, and management — recognize innovation, avoid infringement risks, and contribute to protecting company know-how. Building organization-wide IP awareness strengthens innovation processes and supports strategic IP management.
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In the 📑IP Management Letter series, IP experts find case-based narratives that show how strategic IP management works in real companies and industries, with practical insights they can directly apply to their own portfolios and client work.
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Navigating Design Rights in Integrated IP Portfolios
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Design rights play a strategic role in integrated IP portfolios by protecting the visual appearance of products while other IP rights cover different aspects of innovation. When combined with trademarks, patents, and copyrights, they create a multi-layered protection system. Companies therefore benefit from a holistic IP strategy that integrates design protection early in product development and aligns it with branding, technology protection, and commercialization strategies.
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