A Case Study of Intellectual Property Rights Management with Capability Maturity Model Capability Maturity Model, CMM, was proposed to assess the software development organizations. In a company, the nature of an Intellectual Property Rights Management (IPRM) Department is like the organization of software development. It is possible to use CMM for assessing the performance of the IPRM Department. The IPRM Department in Company A is responsible for handling US patent applications filing. The department is a professional organization and the performance is relatively difficult to assess. In our case study, the Capability Maturity Model was introduced into the department to assess the performance. The schedule and cost of the US patent applications is controlled and measurable.

An Operational Tool to Assess Configuration Lifecycle Maturity The use of product configurators is a wellestablished strategy for companies to support their productsu0027 different life cycle phases (engineering, sales, manufacturing, services). The configuration lifecycle management concept is highly relevant for complex configurable products. The business value gained comes in the form of improved leadtimes, quality, and costs; benefits perceived both internally by the company and externally by their customers, in the form of increased satisfaction. The size of these benefits is also related to the maturity of the organization with regards to configuration lifecycle management. Therefore, this paper examines an operational approach to assess the level of configuration lifecycle maturity. The focus is on how to guide manufacturing companies to achieve the full potentials from operating configurators across all lifecycle phases of their products. Furthermore, how to assess and improve the utilization of configurators across all productu0027s lifecycle phases within manufacturing companies will be elaborated. The findings of this paper are supplemented with a case study conducted at an engineering company that has been working with configurators for 10 years and it has now high emphasis on digitalization.