Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been exploring the concept of stale IP – what it is and what to do about it. I’ve gotten insights from two industry experts in IP (Harrison Beasley of GSA and Manoj Bhatnagar of Atrenta). I will wrap up my series on this topic with one final view – from IP provider, Warren Savage, founder and CEO of IPextreme. He will challenge the whole idea of stale IP in this interview.
Liz: Stale IP – what is it?
Warren: Frankly, I’ve been working in IP for seventeen years, with most of the world’s largest IP and chip companies, and I have never heard the term before. I think people who think about IP being “stale” may be confused about the difference between IP and code. IP is certainly code, but code is not necessarily IP. I have argued vociferously for years on this topic, particularly opposing those who would claim that IP is a service business (see an old blog post by me “Repeat after me: IP is Product Business…” http://blogs.ip-extreme.com/2009/07/test-page.html). I think this notion of “stale IP” is sort of a regurgitation of the idea that there are classes of IP. For me, IP is something that is reusable indefinitely and valuable as long as there is a market for it.
