Maturity Model for Intellectual Property Service Delivery in the Software Industry

Abstract

Capability maturity model (CMMI) has been developed as an industry standard for software service delivery since almost 25 years. The model provides guidelines to build, improve and measure capabilities and enhance performance of an organization. CMMI model was created originally for U.S. department of defense and quickly proliferated to global software industry and is now percolating into other domains. Though almost all functions in a technology driven industry is guided by some form of maturity model, which industries adopt based on different scenarios. However, there are very few approaches available for in-house legal departments, specifically for intellectual property (IP) practice within an organization. Due to the lack of an established maturity model in the area of IP, companies and organization may struggle to develop the company IP model or may not have a reference to benchmark their IP model. Although, many companies and organizations and individuals have tried to develop different kind of models in the past, however, the focus of those models were on individual areas of IP and not necessarily an integrated approach which covers all areas of IP practice.