This blog was co-authored by Fernando Aznar Cornejo, AMD Partner Development Manager; Nathaniel Lum, Senior Applications Engineer, Cliosoft; Amit Varde, Director – Solutions Engineering, Cliosoft.

Intellectual Property (IP) is a critical asset for technology companies, encompassing a company's patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. For technology companies, IP often refers to source code or design, which is the foundation of their products and services. Therefore, protecting IP is crucial to a company's success, and proper management of IP data and processes is equally essential.

As technology companies have grown and become more geographically diverse, managing IP data and processes have become more complex. Companies now need to be able to build geographically diverse teams and design centers, adding new complexity and challenges to IP data and process management. With the advent of cloud computing, companies are leveraging the power of the cloud for high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. This move to the cloud has made effective and efficient IP data management a necessity.

Managing revisions of IPs is a fundamental requirement, but IP data governance, traceability, and security are equally important. These requirements have led to the development of IP management platforms, which are designed to meet the unique needs of technology companies. Ultimately, using an IP management system enables companies to collaborate efficiently with accuracy, secure their IP, track the expertise of their employees, and comply with regulatory requirements.

Companies that work on hardware, software, or both must manage IP data and processes holistically on a Unified IP Management Platform. This platform must provide revision and release control for geographically and functionally diverse teams of engineers and managers contributing to the company's intellectual property development process. This is where the power of using HPC platforms on the cloud is most apparent.

Knowing your key requirements for an IP management system

During the product design process, several features are needed to ensure companies are getting the most out of their IP management system. If you’re looking to implement an IP management system, look to ensure your system has the following elements.

• Version control tools that provide three main features: reversibility, concurrency, and annotation, which help engineering teams manage their source code or design. Integrating version control with IP editor tools improves productivity for engineering teams by making data sharing more efficient and reducing errors. A centralized repository that helps engineers synchronize their work more frequently and improves collaborations by allowing engineers to see who is working on what and stay up-to-date on changes.
• Technology design often has large files, so an IP management system needs to provide viable options to mitigate the problem and manage data management at scale powered with technology such as a network storage optimization.
• IP traceability is a key feature of an IP management system, that helps with Bill of Materials (BOM) Management, IP Provenance tracking, and data analytics
• IP Reuse: To maximize the company's return on invested time, money, and efforts, engineering teams need a central catalog of IPs to search and browse for all available IPs. Engineers need access to real-time, accurate information about the IP. The catalog of IPs must provide comprehensive dependency tracking. Engineers and managers must be able to report the Bill of Materials (BOM) for every project or IP in the catalog and provide an IP consumers' report, including detailed information on the products using the IP.
• Long term return on investment (ROI) stemming from a system that can track IP over time.  Companies spend a lot of time, money and effort to develop the IP, so having a system that can access real-time and historical knowledge about IP is paramount.

Using Cliosoft on Microsoft Azure

Cliosoft’s Data and IP Management platform ensures teams can create, manage, and store their documents, scripts, methodologies, and ideas seamlessly. In addition, Cliosoft HUB addresses the size and complexities of today’s IP management. Used in combination, users can accurately manage their intellectual property.

Microsoft Azure’s purpose-built HPC platform offers industry-leading security, scalability, and flexible use models to meet the demands of the most complex high-performance computing workloads. The availability of Azure’s virtual machines means having large amounts of compute available, which gives companies the flexibility to scale up and down depending on their IP management needs.

By implementing a well-designed Cliosoft IP Source Code Management Platform on Microsoft Azure, enterprise customers can leverage the power of both systems to achieve high scalability, collaboration, availability, and reliability in their product development cycles. This solution provides companies with the tools they need to manage their IP data and processes holistically, ensuring that they can develop high-quality intellectual property while reducing development times and costs.

Moving Forward

IP is a critical asset for technology companies, and proper management of IP data and processes is essential for a company's success. The move to cloud computing has made effective and efficient IP data management a necessity. Cliosoft and Microsoft Azure provide a solution for managing IP source code in technology development, offering a platform that addresses the complexity and challenges of IP governance, traceability, and security. Companies that leverage this solution can achieve high scalability, availability, and reliability in their product development cycles, giving them a competitive advantage in achieving success.

To learn more about the technical details in simplifying your IP management, read the whitepaper.