The increasingly global market conditions make the competition more challenging because goods and services are free to enter countries, so a differentiation strategy is needed to exceed competitors. This condition has extended Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) from mere legal protection of inventions to a means of competition in trade and industry, as stated by Ir. Ahdiar Romadoni, MBA, the IP and Technology Transfer Advisor at LPIK ITB, during the Guest Lecture session on Monday (28/3/2022).
According to Ahdiar, the economy has changed into a knowledge-based economy, supported by the creative industry (creativity-based industry). “Therefore, the old business paradigm oriented towards controlling and processing natural resources to sell products & services to the market is being replaced by the practice of transfer of intellectual property from research and technological developments,” Ahdiar said.
Intellectual property as a product of the human mind (intellectual work) in the form of inventions, designs, names, art, etc., can be utilized in business in many ways. For example, joint development, where intellectual property is created and owned jointly as a collaboration between various parties, or licenses, namely when the inventor of the intellectual property grants permission to another party for the commercialization of his invention. This is where IPR, as an exclusive right granted by the state to a person, group, or legal entity within a certain period for disclosing their work to the public (knowledge transfer), plays a role. IPR secures the rights of the inventor to their invention, as well as controls the use of the invention.
IPR has three main functions in business, namely protection, prevention, and enhancement. The protection function refers to the protection of intellectual property rights, while the prevention function aims to avoid unfair competition practices, such as imitation and theft of works. Finally, the enhancement function of IPR encourages businesses and the wider community to create impactful inventions.
One example of utilizing intellectual property rights in a business that generates a competitive advantage is Mycotech, a startup under LPIK ITB that invented a way to transform mushrooms into artificial leather as engineered composites. The startup’s use of IPR has made them succeed in obtaining funding from foreign investors for business development to penetrate the international market.
