Intellectual Property Rights in Knowledge Management

Introduction

In the realm of knowledge management (KM), there are three vital processes, namely, ‘knowledge identification’, ‘knowledge creation’ and ‘knowledge acquisition’. In organizational as well as societal contexts, the process of knowledge identification primarily concerns conversion of tacit knowledge that exists with people and groups into explicit and documental knowledge—on paper or on electronic contents—in order to clearly bring out what one knows and what one does not know that one knows, and make these explicit enough to be shared by people who may utilize the same for organizational or societal benefit. The knowledge creation process is one step ahead of knowledge identification in that it involves innovation and human ingenuity to bring forth new knowledge from the existing knowledge pool. Research, development, analysis, experimentation, introspection and many other activities are invariably linked with the knowledge creation process, and they often lead to basic scientific knowledge which is then used by commercial organizations for producing new or improved products and processes that benefit the society in general. Finally, there is the process of acquisition of knowledge that already exists elsewhere—with individuals, in universities, in research institutions, with the competitors. The purpose is to avoid ‘reinventing the wheel’ to the extent possible and to accelerate the process of enhancement of organizational capabilities through absorption and assimilation of the acquired knowledge and further creation of new knowledge.

In each of the three distinct KM processes, the issue of ownership of knowledge per se is of paramount importance. The intellectual property and ownership pertaining to a particular piece of knowledge, whether identified within, created by research and development (R&D) or acquired from outside, needs to be clearly established and protected, to ensure equitable sharing of credit and wealth generated by the eventual application of that knowledge. Protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) and generating incentives for the owners are necessary for enhancing knowledge-based approach to work, whether in the domain of industry and trade or in the grassroots-level innovations and traditional knowledge.

During the latter part of the 20th century and in early 21st century, the environmental system in which knowledge production and use took place has become complex. There are many interactions between [Page 126]those involved, and feedbacks from markets and industry identify important and, often, radically new areas of research. Rapid obsolescence of old products and processes, faster exploitation of discoveries and innovations in new fields and efforts of governments to use scientific expertise more effectively in the pursuit of economic and social progress have led to policies and activities aimed at producing closer links among commercial establishments, research laboratories, government institutions and professional bodies. The global nature of business, economy and science and technology (S&T) has broadened the scope of these links. Intellectual property rights have the essential function of defining relationships between those involved in these interactions for changing cultural and regulatory environments, and bringing about net social benefits by increasing the rate of innovation.

Similarly, at the grassroots level, with the level of innovations and traditional knowledge that exists in households, villages and rural economy, it is important that IPR of the knowledge holders are protected. Significant work in this area has been done by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) (http://www.nifindia.org), an IIM-Ahmedabad-based organization that has in the last 20 years of efforts unearthed more than 50,000 innovations practised in rural India. Approximately 100 of these innovations have led to applications for patenting, including six for which US patents have been granted. Many of these innovations remained hidden until NIF detected them—and in some cases substantially improved upon them—before making them available for application to the world at large.

...