Book excerpt: Safeguarding Intangible Assets provides strategies for preserving and enhancing a company's intangible assets to increase its profitability, competitiveness, and sustainability. Intangible assets such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, methodologies, and brand typically account for 80 percent of an organization's value and revenue. There are many forces making it more and more difficult to protect these assets, and securing them is a complex issue often overlooked by security and risk managers. Many security managers do not have adequate policies or procedures in place to protect these assets from compromise, infringement, and theft. Safeguarding Intangible Assets provides managers with the tools necessary for protecting these assets through effective and consistent oversight designed to preserve their control, use, and ownership. The book offers strategies for various types of business transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions, corporate-university R&D alliances, new product launches, early stage firms, and university-based spin-offs. - Offers step-by-step guidelines and best practices for establishing and maintaining an intangible asset protection program - Provides intangible asset risk management strategies that preserve the company's value, revenue, and competitive advantages - Shows how to collaboratively build a company culture that anticipates and recognizes intangible asset risks in everyday transactions and operations - Strengthens the interface with other departments' security practices, including IT, management, legal, accounting, finance, and risk management