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🎯 IP Management Pulse #58
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Your inbox-insider from Prof. Wurzer every two weeks
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Here are the hot topics from 26th March 2026 - 8th April 2026
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NEWS
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AI-driven decisions create measurable business losses | EU targets e-commerce ecosystems to strengthen trademark enforcement | Evaluation of sustainability initiatives beyond patent numbers | Optimization of IP processes with AI
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RESOURCES
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Licensing beyond deals: where value is really created
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DEEP DIVES
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Simplifying your expertise without losing it | Visible IP Episode #1 Part 2/2: What Strong Positioning Looks Like for IP Experts | Brand Protection in the Digital World
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IP MANAGEMENT LEARNINGS
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The UPC Changes the Equation of European Patent Strategy
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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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AI-driven decisions create measurable business losses
Companies are rapidly integrating AI into enterprise workflows, often treating its outputs as reliable and human-like. However, recent data shows the opposite effect: AI-generated errors are already causing significant economic damage. Estimates suggest that AI hallucinations led to global business losses of over $67 billion, while knowledge workers now spend more than four hours per week verifying AI-generated outputs. The underlying issue is not just technical inaccuracy, but misplaced trust. As AI systems become more fluent and human-like in their responses, users tend to overestimate their reliability — allowing flawed outputs to influence business decisions.
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What IP experts can learn from it
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For IP experts, this highlights a critical shift at the decision level. The C-level increasingly relies on AI-supported inputs when making strategic choices — but does not necessarily see where those inputs may be unreliable. This creates a new role for IP management: ensuring that decision-relevant analyses are robust, validated, and clearly contextualised. Whether in patent strategy, competitive intelligence, or portfolio evaluation, the risk is no longer that AI makes errors — but that these errors go unnoticed and shape executive decisions. IP experts therefore become a control layer for decision quality, translating AI-generated insights into trustworthy input for the C-level. In this context, IP management is not about generating information, but about ensuring that decisions are based on information that can be trusted.
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Background information on the IPBA Connect platform
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Benefits of IP Benchmarking for Companies on the digital IP lexicon 🧭dIPlex
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EU targets e-commerce ecosystems to strengthen trademark enforcement
The European Union is introducing new customs reforms aimed at increasing accountability in cross-border e-commerce. In response to the rapid growth of small parcel shipments - often linked to online platforms - the new framework focuses on improving traceability, tightening controls, and assigning clearer responsibility to market participants. The objective is to better detect and prevent the import of counterfeit and non-compliant goods, which have become a systemic challenge in digital trade environments. This development reflects a broader shift: trademark protection is no longer confined to registration and litigation, but increasingly embedded in how digital commerce systems are structured and governed.
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What IP experts can learn from it
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For IP experts, this highlights a fundamental change in how trademarks operate within business ecosystems. The C-level typically assumes that brand protection is ensured through legal rights and enforcement actions. However, in platform-driven markets, the effectiveness of trademark protection depends on how well it is integrated into broader systems - including logistics, customs, and platform governance. This means that IP management must move beyond portfolio administration and actively engage with how brands are protected within these ecosystems. Ensuring that trademarks can be enforced in real-world trade flows requires coordination with external actors and an understanding of how regulatory frameworks shape market access. In this context, trademarks become not just legal rights, but operational assets whose value depends on how effectively they function within complex, interconnected business environments.
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Background information on the IPBA Connect platform
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Counterfeiting in the 🔎IP Management Glossary
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Evaluation of sustainability initiatives beyond patent numbers
A current study examined the relevance of patents for the success of companies' green initiatives. Traditionally, many firms are measuring their innovative capacity primarily by patent numbers, because this is a KPI, which can be easily reported to management. The study, using modern AI-based methods, nevertheless concluded that, in addition to the number of patents, also technology adoption and non-patentable inventions had a significant effect on the success of firm's initiatives.
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What IP experts can learn from it
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IP experts should recognize that patent counts alone are no longer a sufficient measure of innovation success in sustainability contexts. Value increasingly comes from technology adoption, operational implementation, and non-patentable innovations, requiring IP strategies that go beyond portfolio building. This means integrating patents with trade secrets, data, and business processes, and aligning patent portfolio development more closely with R&D teams and commercialization initiatives to support real-world impact rather than just untargeted protection.
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Background information on the IPBA Connect platform
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Patagonia: Leading the Way in Green Fashion in the 📑IP Management Letters
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Optimization of IP processes with AI
While many people are using "AI" interchangeably with "generative AI", there are companies out there which are developing very sophisticated AI-based solutions to address the real problems of companies, such as inefficient workflows. Especially in the IP legal sector, where budget cuts and time pressure are on the rise, AI-based tools are adressing the biggest pain points of IP managers and C-suite alike. Nevertheless, the growing availability of those tools may lead to market confusion, harming quick adoption.
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What IP experts can learn from it
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IP experts should distinguish between generic generative AI and specialized AI solutions that directly improve IP workflows. Under increasing cost and time pressure, the real value lies in tools that deliver measurable efficiency gains across core processes. However, the growing number of solutions creates market confusion, making tool selection and integration a critical strategic capability.
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Resources on the IPBA Connect platform
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Streamlining patent drafting on the digital IP lexicon 🧭dIPlex
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Licensing beyond deals: where value is really created
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In this OFB Fireside Chat, a group of industry IP professionals explored a question that is highly relevant for many organizations today: how can licensing actually create measurable business value?
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A key takeaway was that successful licensing does not start with IP - it starts with the business. Licensing only creates value when it is aligned with strategic objectives such as revenue generation, market expansion, or risk management. At the same time, the main bottleneck is rarely technical, but organizational: licensing requires coordination across IP, business units, and management - and without clear ownership, initiatives often stall.
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The discussion showed that licensing is often misunderstood. While many companies focus on structuring agreements, the real value of licensing is not created at the moment of signing — it emerges in execution. Organizations frequently fail to capture the full economic potential of their licensing programs due to gaps between contractual terms and operational reality, such as inconsistent reporting, unclear product definitions, or missing governance structures.
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The discussion also highlighted a practical approach: rather than building large, abstract licensing programs, companies should start with concrete use cases and develop focused business cases that can be scaled over time.
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The Fireside Chat made one thing clear: Licensing is not a deal-making activity — it is an operational capability that determines whether IP actually translates into business value.
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Visible Council - the IP Expert Branding Column
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Simplifying your expertise without losing it
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By columnist Giulia Donato, Branding & Communication Consultant at people and brand strategies
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The article argues that IP experts must learn to simplify how they communicate their expertise without reducing its substance, as complexity often prevents clients from understanding the real value of IP. It emphasizes that simplification is not about dumbing down content, but about structuring and framing it so decision-makers can act on it. Clear communication helps bridge the gap between deep technical knowledge and business relevance, making expertise more accessible and impactful. Ultimately, those who master this balance become more visible, more trusted, and more likely to be involved earlier in critical business decisions, where IP can create the most value.
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My Favorite from the 📝IP Business Academy Blog
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Visible IP Episode #1 Part 2/2: What Strong Positioning Looks Like for IP Experts
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About Paolo Beconcini, Head of IP and Anti-Counterfeiting Team at Squire Patton Boggs
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This article emphasizes, through insights from Paolo Beconcini, that strong positioning for IP experts is not about broad visibility but about clearly defining a distinct, recognizable niche that clients immediately associate with specific value. Beconcini's example highlights that credibility comes from consistently communicating expertise in a focused domain, rather than trying to cover multiple areas. This enables clients to understand when and why to engage an expert, reducing ambiguity in the market. Ultimately, effective positioning transforms IP professionals from interchangeable service providers into go-to authorities for well-defined problems, improving both visibility and client conversion.
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My Favorite from the 🎧Podcast IP Management Voice
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Brand Protection in the Digital World
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Featuring Luca Grandi, IP Area Counsel – Europe at Ferrero
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This podcast episode explains how intellectual property functions in the digital age, where near-zero-cost copying challenges traditional ideas of exclusivity and control. Digital environments like social media and platforms create new risks, including loss of control, unintended use, and unclear ownership. Enforcement is shifting from courts to platform-based mechanisms such as notice-and-takedown systems, requiring more strategic decision-making. It also highlights considerations like the Streisand effect and when not to enforce rights. Finally, the episode emphasizes the growing importance of intangible assets and the ongoing tension between openness and protection in digital innovation ecosystems.
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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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The UPC Changes the Equation of European Patent Strategy
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The UPC fundamentally shifts European patent strategy by enabling centralized enforcement and revocation across multiple countries, increasing both efficiency and risk. Companies must now strategically balance better enforceability against the danger of losing rights across all jurisdictions in one decision.
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