MILPM Research Projekt

1. PROTECTION OF DIGITAL BUSINESS
MODELS BY DIGITAL PATENTS
Decomposition and characterization of digital business models and
applicability for patent protection on different structural elements
Dr. Frederik Golks
Corporate Intellectual Property
20/09/2018 CEIPI Strasbourg

2. Protection of Digital Business Models
Master's thesis defense in MIPLM | Corporate Intellectual Property – Dr. Frederik Golks | 2018-09-20
© Robert Bosch GmbH 2018. All rights reserved, also regarding any disposal, exploitation, reproduction, editing, distribution, as well as in the event of applications for industrial property rights.
2
IP in a Knowledge Economy
 IP in knowledge economy: IP increasingly important in achieving and defending competitive
advantage (owning distinctive intangible parts of value creation)
 But:
‘A patent per se is nothing more than a piece of paper. It only becomes valuable if it protects
technologies and products that will have success’ – Weibel (Siemens)
 IP management allows systematic value enhancement of patents
 IP management especially crucial for digital value propositions (unlimited in terms of copying)
 digital value propositions fostered by 4th IR
 challenge and opportunity  disruptive potential
 displace focus of value creation and innovation from engineering to automated regulation of any type of
system through collection and analysis of data

3. Protection of Digital Business Models
Master's thesis defense in MIPLM | Corporate Intellectual Property – Dr. Frederik Golks | 2018-09-20
© Robert Bosch GmbH 2018. All rights reserved, also regarding any disposal, exploitation, reproduction, editing, distribution, as well as in the event of applications for industrial property rights.
3
Digitalization – Economic Implications for Industry and Business
 4th IR trends require to re-think business models and make new business models possible (cp. BMI)
 necessity to differentiate!
 rather innovate than invent!
future approaches to create innovation and
new business require understanding
‘product as a bundle of arguments’
(Utterback)
disruptive innovations will eclipse incremental
innovations (trying to improve traditional
solutions)
entire business model important!
adaptedfromHPISchoolofDesignThinking

4. Protection of Digital Business Models
Master's thesis defense in MIPLM | Corporate Intellectual Property – Dr. Frederik Golks | 2018-09-20
© Robert Bosch GmbH 2018. All rights reserved, also regarding any disposal, exploitation, reproduction, editing, distribution, as well as in the event of applications for industrial property rights.
4
Digitalization – Economic Implications for Industry and Business
example ‘big data’:
‘[…] nobody wants data. What they want are the answers.’ – Hand (Imperial College London)
 Need deep understanding of customer, his (hidden) needs and appropriate business models
source:Bosch

5. Protection of Digital Business Models
Master's thesis defense in MIPLM | Corporate Intellectual Property – Dr. Frederik Golks | 2018-09-20
© Robert Bosch GmbH 2018. All rights reserved, also regarding any disposal, exploitation, reproduction, editing, distribution, as well as in the event of applications for industrial property rights.
5
Digitalization – Implications for IP Management
 traditional sources of competitive advantage vanish (scale purchased, best practice copied, …)
 ownership in IP only way to establish defensible position in competitive marketplace
 important to find right spots to protect against imitation – conincident with right spots important for
market position
 Systematic Application of IP to Digital Business Models
‘Is it possible to decompose a digital business model into recurrent elements and to derive approaches
to problem solving mechanisms, which allow to subsequently focus on target-oriented candidates for
inventions, which are applicable to IP protection?’
Or in short: ‘How to focus on patentable patterns of digital business models?’

6. Protection of Digital Business Models
Master's thesis defense in MIPLM | Corporate Intellectual Property – Dr. Frederik Golks | 2018-09-20
© Robert Bosch GmbH 2018. All rights reserved, also regarding any disposal, exploitation, reproduction, editing, distribution, as well as in the event of applications for industrial property rights.
6
Digital Business Models
 ‘a business model describes the substantial mechanism by which a company or organization
capitalizes based on an underlying value-added process – how it creates, delivers and captures
value for a defined target customer.’
 ‘a business model is digital in case digital technologies lead to a fundamental change in a company’s
business process and revenue mechanics‘ – Veith
adapted from Osterwalder, Pigneur, ‘Business Model Generation’, Wiley (2011)

7. Protection of Digital Business Models
Master's thesis defense in MIPLM | Corporate Intellectual Property – Dr. Frederik Golks | 2018-09-20
© Robert Bosch GmbH 2018. All rights reserved, also regarding any disposal, exploitation, reproduction, editing, distribution, as well as in the event of applications for industrial property rights.
7
Digital Business Models – From Business Models to IP Strategies
 business models tool for analyzing requirements of IP strategy
 business model and blocking effect have interdependent,
complementary correlation
 blocking effect make customer’s benefit exclusive and
defensible
 optimizing blocking effect of patent regarding business
model means optimizing value of IP
 task of IP different depending on business model
 business model: holistic perspective on business
including value creation, marketing and financial
aspects
IP-based Business Model for Differentiation

8. Protection of Digital Business Models
Master's thesis defense in MIPLM | Corporate Intellectual Property – Dr. Frederik Golks | 2018-09-20
© Robert Bosch GmbH 2018. All rights reserved, also regarding any disposal, exploitation, reproduction, editing, distribution, as well as in the event of applications for industrial property rights.
8
Digital Business Models – Peculiarities
 ‘hybrid business models’ implementing IoT
 interdependence of levels creates value
 digital business model patterns necessarily
intermingle with ‘classical’ patterns (IoT, I4.0, …)
 data-driven business models (purely digital)
 relies on data as key resource
business implementation becomes decisive
and crucial for IP strategy
IP strategy should aim at making exclusive
the customer benefit at all levels
digitalization
Fleisch, Weinberger, Wortmann, ‘Business Models and the Internet of Things’, Whitepaper of Bosch Internet of Things and Services Lab (2014)
Wurzer, Neidlein, Fischer, ‘Patentstrategien in der Industrie 4.0’, Mitteilungen der deutschen Patentanwälte (2018)

9. Protection of Digital Business Models
Master's thesis defense in MIPLM | Corporate Intellectual Property – Dr. Frederik Golks | 2018-09-20
© Robert Bosch GmbH 2018. All rights reserved, also regarding any disposal, exploitation, reproduction, editing, distribution, as well as in the event of applications for industrial property rights.
9
Decomposition of Digital Business Models into Recurring Logics
 business models composed of recurring and recombinant building blocks (cp. BMI):
 ‘90 % of all business model innovations are recombinations‘ – Gassmann (University St. Gallen)
 aspect of recombination fundamental to digital technologies
 incredible simplicity and wealth of recombinations
 characterization of 4 recurring logics in digital business models
 logics identified in creative technological thinking (empirical)
‒ related to recurring elements in digital business models (economic role):
 logics determine relevant activities of companies – how goods and
services are manufactured and made available to target markets
‒ related to technological implications accessible to patent protection
(technical role)
• simulation and attribution logic
• networking logic
• enabling logic
• data and information logic
source:Bosch

10. Protection of Digital Business Models
Master's thesis defense in MIPLM | Corporate Intellectual Property – Dr. Frederik Golks | 2018-09-20
© Robert Bosch GmbH 2018. All rights reserved, also regarding any disposal, exploitation, reproduction, editing, distribution, as well as in the event of applications for industrial property rights.
10
Protection of Digital Business Models – Technical Concepts
 recombinability runs through to technical aspects
 apply methods for methodical problem-solving:
 limited set of technical problems / solutions
(invention principles) recurring and recombinant
 correlate typical solutions for typical systems and
typical problems (characteristic in concrete context)
 inventive step depending on precise application
8 technical invention principles distinguishable
 derive implications for technical solutions by analyzing
underlying logics with respect to potential recurring
problem-solution-couples
 guide for IP design (helps to focus innovation expenditures)

11. Protection of Digital Business Models
Master's thesis defense in MIPLM | Corporate Intellectual Property – Dr. Frederik Golks | 2018-09-20
© Robert Bosch GmbH 2018. All rights reserved, also regarding any disposal, exploitation, reproduction, editing, distribution, as well as in the event of applications for industrial property rights.
11
IP-Design Based on Logics and Empirical Invention Principles
 model framework allows identifying most promising candidates for patent protection:
(1) analyze digital business model and innovative success scenario with
respect to logics and determine major direction of strategic prohibition
(2) determine IP strategy in alignment with business strategy
(3) determine customer benefit from underlying generic but formative
logic(s)
(4) formulate desired blocking effects based on customer benefits
(5) suppress competitor offers aiming at same customer benefit
‒ identify technical problems essential to achievement of customer benefit
(task-based formulation)
‒ summarize elements / features of technical solutions, whose protection is
desired from perspective of business model
‒ use invention principles as guide for texturing solution space of technical
solutions, which make intended customer benefit realizable
‒ derive inventions applicable to patent protection by synthetic inventing, file
approach to deduct and design IP rights in target-oriented manner

12. Protection of Digital Business Models
Master's thesis defense in MIPLM | Corporate Intellectual Property – Dr. Frederik Golks | 2018-09-20
© Robert Bosch GmbH 2018. All rights reserved, also regarding any disposal, exploitation, reproduction, editing, distribution, as well as in the event of applications for industrial property rights.
12
Protection by Digital Patents
 patent type:
 classification according to structural elements
of digital business models to which they relate
and for which they create a blocking effect
 typified insofar as they are attributed to
recurrent objects / economic effects
 ‘digital patent’:
 patent type which is related to and used to
protect digital business models from imitation

13. Protection of Digital Business Models
Master's thesis defense in MIPLM | Corporate Intellectual Property – Dr. Frederik Golks | 2018-09-20
© Robert Bosch GmbH 2018. All rights reserved, also regarding any disposal, exploitation, reproduction, editing, distribution, as well as in the event of applications for industrial property rights.
13
Summary and Outlook
 first understanding of digital patents and their economic role within
digital business models
 derived first concepts for protecting digital business models
 identification of recurring logics as building blocks
 identification of recurrent technical concepts / invention
principles
 assistance for target-oriented IP design
 future research may focus on
 detailed and alternative concepts of structural decomposition
(logics and/or technical concepts)
 creation of consistent set of recurring structural elements and
invention principles (e.g., via patent information)
 validation of empiric concepts (field studies)