Focus on…Technical revolution and transformation of an in-house role

We are currently living and working in a highly disruptive environment. The pandemic will probably not be over for a long time. A war is raging on our doorstep, in Ukraine, and climate change is advancing. Even if we saw some of these events coming, none of us expected them to accumulate and come to a head.

Nevertheless, we must deal with these situations, and as in-house lawyers we must face new challenges arising from them. One of these is the strategic handling of intangible assets, and I do not see this as being reduced to intellectual property in the original sense.

The interconnectedness of the world is advancing, fuelled not least by the pandemic. In recent years, for example, many companies, regardless of size, have accelerated the digitization of their internal organisation and processes, as well as the development and offering of digital products. If this has not yet happened, it will inevitably have to happen promptly. With this advancing digitalisation, intangible assets in the sense of IPR, but also generated data, have increased. They are an ever-increasing factor in the value of a company.

Accordingly, the criteria for long-term enterprise value have changed fundamentally. The data economy and data society, the turn to AI, the increasing importance of new technologies such as blockchain, 3D printing and the internet of things, and the development of new business models, such as the platform economy, the data economy and the circular economy, are increasingly coming into focus. The digitalisation of production requires the networking of data assets, the sharing and monetisation of data, and a “servitisation” of the company, meaning an increased offering of services alongside the core business. This requires companies to open and transform, with the result that not only data-processing IT companies, but also conventional companies across industries will expand their activities and look for new data-driven business models.

However, in order to continuously develop and implement use cases for the use of data, the data strategy must not focus solely on technological solutions provided by the IT department. Rather, it needs an interdisciplinary approach and additional competencies in the dimensions of processes, organisation and data. This is also where the legal department comes into play.

This technical revolution and transformation require us, in-house lawyers, to deal with the identification, protection and monetisation of these intangible assets in a very strategic and conceptual way and with a wealth of ideas. Here, we can meet the demand for the legal department to increasingly become a profit centre as well, and in addition to IP management along this digital value chain, we can also contribute with legal expertise in the areas of data protection. Data protection is not an additional function, but a central part of the DNA of digital value creation.