Research Rap: Product IP Risk - Fact or Fiction?

A quick peek into some research on
… protecting product IP, in combination
with news about military espionage to
steal sensitive engineering data, points out the importance
of protecting IP, trade, and military secrets. Although
the stakes are higher when considering national security, the
example clearly shows the ability for individuals across
industries to compromise sensitive engineering data to share
with others. Whether this is an issue of national security or a
matter of protecting corporate knowledge, it is an issue that
is getting a lot of attention of late. Particularly as companies
move to global design and manufacturing models.

The Need to Protect IP
Recent research into planned technology adoption in product
innovation, product development, and engineering shows that the
highest growth area in PLM-related technology adoption - by far -
is the adoption of digital rights management (DRM). This follows
past research into Protecting Product IP and Global Design that
indicate that protecting product IP is a significant concern in
today’s global businesses. A
linked article quotes
Ken Wainstein, the assistant attorney
general for National Security, who references a “Defense
Department report from 2006 noting a 43% increase in the number of
suspicious foreign contacts reported by American defense firms –
many of which were presumably foreign operatives probing for
protected military information.”

Is DRM the Right Answer?
The
research shows the demand for digital rights management (DRM) and
the IP protection pressures leading to it. It does not indicate
that DRM is the answer to these problems. Some forms of “IP
friendly collaboration” such as sharing limited design information
with partners or sharing degraded geometric accuracy are also
approaches being adopted by leading firms. To be sure, even the
Best-in-Class are adopting PLM (the Product Innovation Agenda 2010
benchmarks indicate of 200% growth over the next 2 years). The IP
problem is hyped right now, and may not be as big a problem as some
could imagine. But it is a problem, and a significant one for many
companies. Companies like Adobe
are partnering up with leading PLM/CAD players like Siemens, Dassault Systems, and others in order to
protect design IP. These companies, along with Autodesk among others, also offer
their own methods to share designs in safer, less precise formats.
A host of visualization companies offer similar capabilities as
well. Not to mention the fact that PLM, in an of itself, is way to
protect IP - at least before it is shared “out in the wild” beyond
the safety of the firewall (via e-mail, FTP, drives,
etc.)

Is the Threat Real?
Some will
easily dismiss the IP risk. After all, not everybody is guarding
national security secrets. But wherever there is a financial gain
to be garnered by someone taking a questionably moral shortcut,
someone will always be willing to cross the line. If people are
willing to sell military secrets related to the “space shuttle,
C-17 military transport plane, and the Delta IV rocket” then I can
imagine someone would be willing to trade their
conscience and sell the IP behind an innovative industrial product
or hot design.

So that was a quick peek into some
recent research, I hope you found it interesting. So product IP is
really at risk according to recent research and news coverage. Do
you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your
perspective.