The thirteenth agency in the community is the Intellectual Property (IP) Agency. The agency’s primary aim is to promote and facilitate origination and processing of intellectual property within the community.

The community places a lot of emphasis on innovation, as it is on this basis that it is able to create an economy that drives the community to prosperity while maintaining a competitive advantage over the external economy. This advantage encompasses both social organization and economic development.[1]

The IP Agency is part of the Governance Department, which also includes the Legal Services and Audit Agencies. The department’s primary objective is to instill community values in the community, such that it becomes, and is seen to be, a model society that others would like to join. It does this by strengthening institutional governance in the community, as well as facilitating innovation. In addition, the IP Agency institutes mechanisms that ensure IP development is ethical, and reflects the community’s general social and economic strategy. 

The IP Agency performs the majority of its duties through an automated system. Participants use the system for their interactions with the agency. In instances where the system is unable to adequately help, the participants can approach the Governance Department’s agents for further assistance. The departmental agents, beyond helping the participants, also inform the agency president how the system can be improved to better handle participants’ needs.

The IP Agency’s roles are performed either independently of other agencies (core responsibilities) or as a coordinated effort with other agencies.  

Core responsibilities

The IP Agency’s core responsibilities revolve around its duty to help participants originate intellectual property and use the community’s infrastructure and expertise to generate maximum value and impact from the intellectual property. Intellectual property includes trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, and patents. Besides providing the community with a competitive advantage, IP can be licensed or sold, thereby generating additional revenues for the community as a whole and the involved participants.[2]

In line with these objectives, the agency regulates the automated system that performs the following roles:

• Facilitates preparation of intellectual property by the participants
• Grants and administers IP rights within the community
• Supports research and development activities by participants, which could lead to IP

Preparation of intellectual property

Participants use the automated IP system to prepare their IP claims before they are formally filed. The system examines the proposed innovation or product to establish its novelty and usefulness.[3] The agency maintains an online checklist, through which participants can check whether their idea makes the cut. The agency, through departmental agents, may sometimes be directly involved in the process, in instances where the participant needs such assistance.

Intellectual property preparation involves performing due diligence on the IP rights being claimed by a would-be innovator. The agency’s checklist would, for instance, require that all people who participated in the process be properly accounted for and their roles.[4] The process also involves thoroughly interrogating the said IP to ensure that it is clearly new, useful, and nonobvious, with an emphasis on determining the economic viability of an idea. Then, the system determines whether there are existing ideas that are too close or almost identical to the proposed product.

Granting and administering IP rights

After an IP rights claim has been adequately prepared by a participant using the IP Agency’s system, the agency grants IP rights.[5] The force of these rights is applicable within the community, where the agency has the necessary infrastructure to administer them. Beyond the community, however, the participant uses the agency’s system to liaise with the relevant societal authorities charged with granting and administering IP rights. The external authorities are then able to enforce the rights on a wider scale and in a more effective role.[6] In instances where the participant has challenges with the process, departmental agents step in to assist.

Since external authorities must as well be convinced that the IP rights indeed deserve recognition, the agency aligns its own system’s preparation process with what external authorities require. For instance, a patent application is not only supposed to be applicable within the community but internationally as well.

Support research and development (R&D)

Research and development is the driving force behind intellectual property development. The IP Agency develops research and development systems so that participants can be more involved in creating IP. The agency provides information through the automated system that explains the benefits of IP to the individual creators and the community at large. The agency system also informs participants on what they need to look out for when developing IP. The agency facilitates access to the relevant services needed by participants to create IP and works towards creating an enabling environment for innovators.[7]

Coordinated Responsibilities

The IP Agency coordinates with other agencies to perform some of its roles. As indicated earlier, the coordination is guided by the IP Agency’s position in the Governance Department or the Business Support Vertical or diagonally with other agencies beyond these two categories.

Horizontal coordination

Within the Governance Department, the IP Agency works with Agency 13 – the Legal Services Agency, as the IP Agency strives to provide participants with the best system and advice for IP rights. The IP Agency seeks the Legal Services Agency’s input to ensure proper preparation.[8] The IP Agency coordinates with Agency 15 – the Audit agency, to critically assess proposed IP before it is approved for further development and funding.

Vertical coordination

The IP Agency encourages participants to engage in IP development with coordination from Agency 2 – the Stewardships Agency. The IP Agency also liaises with Agency 20 – the Business Planning Agency, so that business plans formulated by participants prioritize research and development of IP in their activities.

The IP Agency system facilitates funding of IP development through business loans and grants as applicable, in conjunction with Agency 8 – the Investment Bank Agency, and other agencies beyond this vertical. The IP Agency system vets applications for funding and recommends them to the Investment Bank, which is mandated to support startups and ventures that involve IP.

Diagonal coordination

The IP Agency also liaises with other agencies to promote IP development and rights. The agency system identifies participants who could be assisted to develop IP, in conjunction with Agency 1 – the Human Relations Agency. The IP Agency also works with Agency 12 – the Public Relations Agency to promote IP success stories and the community’s emphasis on innovation to the outside world, with an eye toward attracting innovators into the community.

Conclusion

The community is keen on innovation as one of the means through which it can build a prosperous and sustainable economy. The emphasis on innovation also helps the community maintain a competitive advantage over the external economy, in the process becoming an attractive destination for investment and top talent. Through innovation, the community is able to offer superior choices in business practices, social organization, and technology. Innovation is therefore seen both as a means through which to survive and as a sure way to prosper economically and socially. The ultimate aim is to provide a compelling case for the community as the most sustainable and practical form of economic and social organization.

The community offers a different economic model with respect to IP rights. Normally, innovators would work alone or on small teams, struggle to actualize their ideas, and, where they are successful, use the shortest route to economic benefit. The community, however, takes up the process, providing the participant with the facilities needed to innovate. In return, the community ensures that benefits accrue to the whole community while crediting and rewarding the creator(s). This way, innovations are not run purely for profit but also for the general public good. The community eliminates capitalism between individuals and instead make the community the capitalist. Intellectual property is developed and claimed not merely to make a profit but as a powerful force of economic and social transformation.

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[1] Intellectual property should by new, useful and non-obvious. With these qualities, an entity can gain a competitive advantage over other competing entities. The community will own all patents. It uses them to generate maximum value, economically or otherwise, for the originators and the community as a whole (Singleton, A. Using Intellectual Property to Gain a Competitive Advantage in the Marketplace. Internal. Champaign: Singleton Law Firm, 2019. electronic.)

[2] IP makes economies more competitive. Developed countries, as well as India, China and emerging Asian economies have all prioritized research and development, which creates IP, and new knowledge that can be used for business and social advantage (Braga, C., C. Fink and C. Sepulveda. Intellectual Property Rights and Economic Development. Washington: World Bank, 2000. Print.).

[3] Patents and other forms of IP exist to encourage innovation and creativity. They are strictly appraised to establish whether they are really worth protection, and to protect an innovator’s hard work that undoubtedly goes into producing it (Tidwell, J. and L Liotta. “Inventions and patents: a practical tutorial.” Methods in molecular biology 823.2012 (2012): 391-408.).

[4] The IP development process in many cases involves collaboration between different people. As of 2016, 20% of patents filed in the US involved at least four participants. It is important to give due credit to all those involved, and the extent of their participation. This makes the process fair and transparent, inspires confidence in the inventors/innovators (Rice, J. Preparing for IP Diligence: Ensuring Proper Inventorship and Ownership of Patents. 15 March 2019. electronic. 12 May 2019).  

[5] Currently, countries such as the United States accept electronic filing of patents, which are then appraised electronically as well as by experts. The community will have such a model, though a greater degree of appraisal will be done through an automated system (USCO. U.S. Copyright Office. 22 July 2016. 12 May 2019).

[6] By granting the applied for rights, the agency will make it illegal to use such rights, without the express permission of the agency. Beyond the community, the agency will secure such rights on behalf of the community and constantly liaise with relevant authorities to ensure the protection of its property (USCO).

[7] Current figures show that for various reasons, private entities are unable to support R&D, without which innovation is extremely difficult. The government gives such support. The government has strong tools to encourage R&D, including offering tax breaks, financial muscle, and the ability to enforce IP. The IP Agency will approach R&D from such a perspective, whereby profit is not the sole motivation. It will also be able to encourage cooperation between participants working towards similar goals (Taylor, T. Principles of Economics. Houston: Rice University, 2017. Electronic).

[8] It is important for the parties involved in IP preparation and prosecution – the IP agency and participants – to be well acquainted with legal aspects of IP rights. This will prevent infringements and better familiarity with the rights of claimants( Harms, L. The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights. WIPO, 2012. Print.).