An intellectual property audit can be considered a number of things.  The first thing is that it is a snapshot of the position of a person’s intellectual property.  The second thing is that it can also be considered a directional sign to future intellectual property rights and research and development.
 
The process usually involves three stages.  The first stage is an educational process, to alert the subject, and his or her employees to the reasons for the audit and the nature of the process.  The second stage is the actual audit process.  The third and final stage is the development of a written report, its delivery and subsequent debriefing meeting with the subject organisation.
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A chemist shown the structure of a new molecule having a single chiral centre will understand that two enantiomers, being mirror images of one another, may exist.  If the molecule exhibits activity a question arises whether that activity is mostly due to only one of the enantiomers and, if so, which one? If the racemate demonstrates strong therapeutic activity there may be pressure to file a patent application quickly to establish rights before competitors identify the same molecule independently or the information is made public. (more…)

Unlike a standard patent, an inventive step is not required for an innovation patent. Rather, it is sufficient if the invention is novel and possess an innovative step. Thus, an innovation patent can provide valuable protection for lower level or incremental inventions that would not meet the inventive step test.

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