MBA courses and IP: Introduction

Neil Wilkof of Herzog, Fox & Neeman and the IP Finance blog teaches IP to MBAs and has related a number of his thoughts from this experience, both on IP Finance and in letters to IAM (Issue 33).  His recent letter to IAM about the importance of IP and teaching it to MBAs got me thinking once again about a regular topic here at ipVA: the marriage between IP strategy and commercial strategy.

Like any marriage, this is a partnership built on understanding.  In this case, successfully integrating IP into a business and the business into the IP in the long term means that:

• The IP/legal team understands the wider business context and strategy; and
• Management and the business strategy team understands the basics of IP.

[NB: I see IP strategy consultants such as ourselves as facilitators that build understanding between these two groups - we are IP business marriage counselors].

MBAs make up a key moment in the education of one half of this partnership – the management and business strategy team. It seems both logical and a practical (pedagogical) necessity to integrate IP into this educational process in order to fully equip management with the IP fundamentals for modern business.

So this leads to a question:

Do MBA programmes integrate intellectual property into their curriculum, and if so, how?

First, I did some searching to see if any specialised IP-centred MBA exists, but only found Andy Gibbs’s article at IP Frontline “Intellectual Property is a CEO Thing“, which gives an excellent discussion of MBA programmes and IP training:

Try as they may, MBA and Executive MBA programs offered by respected institutions like Harvard, Yale, Stanford and others, ill-prepare tomorrow’s CEO for today’s business climate. Even ‘entrepreneuring’ curricula introduce students of business to little more than statistical market analysis and forensic review of notorious or notable businesses of yesteryear — in essence, barely more than an applied business history class.

He notes that intellectual property forms the core of “today’s business climate” that backward-facing approach MBA graduates are ill prepared to handle:

Pay attention only to the MBA laundry list, and in 24 months, a host of IP-savvy CEOs will clean your clock! … [I]intellectual property management is the ultimate big gun. The competent CEO knows that for almost every business casualty, there is a recovery plan. But, lack of prior planning on the IP front line allows the enemy to gain a competitive, long-term advantage from which there is NO recovery.

Truer words…

Gibbs’s article is from 2001 – so what’s been happening in eight years in MBA programmes? Has IP taken centre stage in MBA teaching? Does it even have a walk on role? I’m encouraged that someone like Neil Wilkof teaches MBA courses on IP, but given some of his thoughts in his IAM letter, and the fact that academia moves rather slowly, I’m wondering specifically.

• Does IP make it into the list of required (core) courses at top MBA schools?
• Are IP fundamentals or IP strategy courses offered as electives?

In trying to find the answer, the next post in this series will be a short (and unscientific) survey of the IP offerings in MBA programmes. Since this topic will become a recurring theme on this blog, I’m creating a new category for posts on “IP Education”.

Tagged as: IP strategy, mba and ip