Navigating the Shift in IPMS: From SaaS to Platform Solutions

The demands placed on intellectual property (IP) practitioners require improved coordination, adaptability, and responsiveness. These imperatives are driving a transformation in how law firms and corporations address their IP management system (IPMS) requirements. Replacing the traditional, one-size-fits-all Software as a Service (SaaS) model are new, highly flexible platform-based product architectures that are better suited to address the multifaceted needs of today’s IP practices.

This shift is driving a transformation in the IPMS solution market, moving from traditional SaaS systems to platform solutions better suited to meet these evolving demands.

Intellectual property is a core strategic asset for brand and innovation focused companies. Significant challenges arise from the need to effectively manage increasingly complex and expanding IP portfolios. The core issues center on several key areas:

• Operational Complexity driven by the demands of global expansion and the increased coordination needed between owners and their outside counsel, associates, agents, and PTOs, across jurisdictions and workflows.

• Data Management is required to integrate a growing volume of information including emails, documents, reports, and other correspondence, received in different formats and in different ways.

• Asset Maintenance to ensure the accuracy and enforceability of assets across families and jurisdictions, including data quality, renewals, assignments, and other formalities.

• Operational Effectiveness to efficiently manage workflows across geographies, business units, products, and stakeholders to ensure optimal productivity and cost management.

• Communication and Collaboration to provide information flow and transparency across participants and stakeholders related to building, maintaining, and deploying IP assets.

These challenges necessitate a comprehensive approach to IP portfolio management, encompassing global coordination, information integration, asset upkeep, workflow efficiency, and transparent communication. Successfully navigating these complexities is essential 
for companies to protect and leverage their intellectual property, ultimately driving 
their competitive advantage and business success.

The evolving complexities and new requirements in intellectual property management are driving IP teams to reassess their current IP management systems (IPMS). Most organizations have deployed SaaS-based systems that provide hosted, subscription licenses with standard modules that allow only limited, or expensive, configurations. These systems increasingly fall short in addressing the diverse and complex challenges faced by IP practices.

The limitations of traditional SaaS in IPMS include:

• Mismatched Functional Capabilities. The standard, modular features of the traditional SaaS software are inherently generalized and therefore are not precisely aligned to the specific needs of different portfolios or organizations. The result is inefficiency and inability to meet specific data, workflow, reporting and other needs.

• Lack of Customization. SaaS systems either prohibit or are expensive to customize due to their multi-tenant architecture. Any significant customizations require altering the core application, which can be costly and may affect stability and scalability.

• Inflexible Data Integration. 
Traditional SaaS solutions are unable 
to easily or cost effectively integrate or consume disparate data sources, especially those specific to IP. The resulting siloed data environments lead to data quality issues and lack of control.

• Sub-optimal Global Coordination. 
The inherently closed nature of SaaS is 
not well-equipped to provide open collaboration or sharing of information or workflows between internal stakeholders, outside counsel, foreign associates, agents, or PTOs. The result is inefficient processes, inaccurate data, higher costs, and risk of missed deadlines.

• Limited Flexibility to Fit Complex Environments. The SaaS multi-tenant, shared infrastructure model can limit how infrastructure, such as servers and databases, are deployed across global datacenters. This limits how organizations can support users and meet data control requirements.

• Security and Compliance Concerns. Where high value, sensitive data requires strict security and compliance controls, the multi-tenant, shared database environment of SaaS systems poses risks in data security and privacy.

In response to these limitations, there has been a significant shift towards Platform Solutions that can provide the benefits of the traditional SaaS model, but which offer superior capabilities across the full range of today’s IPMS requirements.

This new Platform Solution model in IPMS leverages the power of a solution ecosystem composed of purpose-built apps that benefit from both low code, quick-to-develop, and custom development.

Importantly, the platform model is flexible to allow new advanced technologies including PTO data APIs, automated workflows, and AI to ensure the best experience and future enhancements.

A platform solution offers several superior capabilities including:

• Rapid Application Development. The platform-based approach allows for rapid application development in a low-code environment. This empowers users to quickly build and deploy solutions without the need for extensive coding resources.

• Customization and Complexity Handling. While the low-code environment caters to speed and ease of use, the platform architecture also allows for the integration of custom components. This is crucial for addressing more specialized or complex functionalities that generic tools cannot handle.

• Directed Information Flow. By focusing on the specific needs of users, the platform ensures that information and functionality are fundamentally aligned with user requirements, leading to more efficient and effective outcomes.

• Seamless Integration Users Familiar Day-to-Day Tools. The significant advantage of this approach is its ability to integrate seamlessly with commonly used work tools such as Microsoft Office, Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, and Power BI. This integration streamlines workflows and enhances user experience.

RightHub Enterprise has been designed to solve the challenges of traditional SaaS based IPMS systems with an advanced Platform Solution. Built on the ‘Microsoft Stack,’ the solution offers both law firms and corporate IP teams advanced features, full customization, flexible integrations, and options for deployment.

The key benefits of RightHub Enterprise include:

• Advanced IPMS Features support the diverse and complex requirements of IP practitioners across the full IP lifecycle. The modules and features are purpose-built to streamline IP workflows, ensuring efficient handling across IP types and processes.

• Close Microsoft integration enables the IPMS to work with popular Microsoft tools such as Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, and Power BI. This offers a familiar and cohesive environment for users, enhancing productivity and collaboration.

• Enhanced Workflows with Power Automate allow users to automate tasks and complex processes, thereby saving time and reducing the likelihood of errors. Users can customize workflows to match their specific operational needs, ensuring greater efficiency in IP management tasks.

• Global IP Docketing (DocketEngine) provides comprehensive laws and rules to automatically create tasks across all record types and prosecution stages.

• ePTO Sync enables case creation and updates through electronic bibliographic and prosecution event data, with data quality review and auto-docketing.

• Power BI Analytics empowers IP practitioners to create and analyze sophisticated reports that support a full range of management decision making from filing through maintenance.

• Scalability Built on Microsoft Azure with full infrastructure control across data security, recovery, and access with Entra single sign-on and optimized geo-location.

Transitioning the IPMS from a traditional SaaS system to an advanced platform solution, such as RightHub Enterprise, offers numerous benefits that are in line with the evolving demands of modern IP practices. Enhanced integration capabilities, particularly with the Microsoft ecosystem, streamline workflows and improve user experience. Advanced customizability and automation features, such as those provided by Power Automate and DocketEngine, lead to significant efficiency gains and ensure compliance with global IP laws and regulations. This shift also facilitates real-time data synchronization with PTOs, a critical factor for accurate and up-to-date portfolio management. Moreover, the integration with Power BI supports data-driven decision-making, a vital aspect of strategic IP management.

The scalability and flexibility of platform solutions cater to the growing and changing needs of businesses, while robust security and compliance features meet stringent industry standards.

In conclusion, moving to a platform solution like RightHub Enterprise represents a strategic move towards a more integrated, efficient, and adaptable IP management system. It positions IP practices to effectively navigate the complexities of the intellectual property landscape, ensuring that they remain competitive and responsive to the changing dynamics of the industry.

Ralph Schroeder leads RightHub's North America business and was the architect of the RightHub Enterprise solution. Ralph has dedicated his career to advancing best practices in managed IP operations, having worked with some of the industry's most well-regarded corporations and law firms. Prior to RightHub, Ralph was the founder of Helios IP (acquired by RightHub), and previously with PwC, Delphion, Dennemeyer, Anaqua, and Hyperion.

Contact Ralph at rschroeder@righthub.com or +1 813 540 3739