That is why the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO) has been looking into 1000 patent families with registrations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The investigation showed that startups are not only exceptionally good at producing innovations, but also follow strong IP strategies (Intellectual Property). Three of the most successful will be presented with the 2018 IP-Management Award at the Patente 2018 convention in Munich on March 13.

The Fraunhofer Institute will also be supplying the findings of the analysis to other companies: The Digital-IP-Navigator can serve as a practical decision-making assistant in this respect and should “make IP management fit for the digital future”. The free Digital-IP-NavigatorBASIC version is an Excel spreadsheet with eight strategy suggestions, while the fee-based Digital-IP-NavigatorPLUS covers 64 IP strategies.