However, even a new product innovation that last only for a short time may provide for significant market advantage. Intellectual property laws around the world provide a relatively consistent set of guidelines for inventors to establish clear title to their new product innovations. In a recent Statistics Canada study of manufacturers involved in new-product development, John Baldwin asked if they were reporting sales from products brought to market over the preceding three years. Certainly this can be explained in part by the fact that the larger companies in the sample were the ones managing their intellectual property, and they too are the ones with the deeper pockets. In order to understand the results when companies become well versed in protecting their new-product developments, it's useful to look abroad at countries that have enjoyed huge success in controlling technologies internationally.
Japan is certainly one such country.
When the number of patent filings by Canadian inventors in Canada and Japanese inventors in Japan are compared statistically, some wide gaps are evident. When the population difference is accounted for, this translates into 28 times more patent filings in Japan per capita than we see in Canada. This factor must contribute to the ability of the Japanese to dominate technology industries worldwide. Intellectual Property as a Tool for Managing Risk in the Firm Risk management can be broadly defined as a company's use of management techniques to minimize the adverse effects of accidental losses on an organization at a reasonable cost. One of the first steps in risk management is the identification of exposure to loss.