Help from IPOS enabled Trek 2000 to extract more value from intangible assets.

Best known as the company who gave the world the USB Flash Drive ThumbDrive®, electronics solutions provider Trek 2000 International provides design solutions ranging from Mobile Media Solutions, Wireless, Anti-piracy, Compression and Encryption to sophisticated Enterprise Solutions, all catering to the fast-changing digital industry. Listed on the Singapore stock exchange, it has offices in US, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Hong Kong, Japan, China, the Netherlands and Philippines. Trek 2000 was named by Forbes as one of the Best Small Companies in the World in 2000 and 2002. It owns a portfolio of about 400 patents and has a clientele that includes the likes of Toshiba, Imation, Lenovo, Memorex and many other global companies.

Trek 2000 already had an intellectual property (IP) management system in place when it became one of the first companies to participate in the SCOPE IP™ programme by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS).

"We were doing IP management from our own commercial perspective. It had never occurred to us that we should develop some form of methodology," says Gurcharan Singh, the company’s chief financial officer.

More focused approach

But with IPOS came a set of diagnostic tools. It enabled Trek 2000 to take on a more focused and disciplined approach, and raised the firm’s IP management to the next level.

The entire process, which took six months, proved to be an enriching experience for the company’s staff, from directors and heads of department right down to rank and file staff.

What SCOPE IP™ gave Trek 2000 was a formal structure to follow through all the thought processes. It promoted greater IP awareness among employees as well as helped create an organisational culture in which staff ideas were valued.

 “When employees come out with new ideas, they know what processes to follow. There is a structured flow. There is follow-through. So, that’s the benefit of SCOPE IP™,” Singh says.

Stretching dollar value from innovative ideas

Singh says that while many small businesses pay a lot of attention to tangible assets such as fixed assets and inventories, there is often the tendency to overlook the importance of IP assets such as trademarks, copyrights, brand identity or even creative marketing processes.

For Trek 2000, the recognition of IP value as an additional asset means that innovative ideas involving cutting-edge technology, novel design or superior processes are translated a lot faster into dollar values.

Commercial returns can also be extended over a longer period for the company.

This is because being the holder of a patent gives Trek 2000 revenue sharing rights for a lifespan of 20 years for products – like the USB Flash Drive ThumbDrive® – that are sold worldwide using its patented technology.

Singh is of the view that more SMEs should participate in the SCOPE IP™ programme in order to realise what their intangible assets can offer.

By leveraging on IP management, he notes that Singapore companies would be better positioned to capture and protect their market share through licensing or franchising. With proper IP assets, local firms can also attract new partners and improve on product or service offerings.

While small businesses often lack the resources due to labour, capital or time constraints to implement an IP system, the benefit of SCOPE IP™ is that it cuts short the learning curve and allows innovative ideas to be introduced to th