Role of Intellectual Property during Recession

Recession indicates downsizing, shrinking markets and increasing competition. Recession has hit global economy very hard in the recent past. The year 2007 marked the beginning of recession and it is not yet certain whether it has ended. Several industries have suffered largely because of the global meltdown. More and more industries are turning to their intangibles to keep afloat to ride this recession tide. The paper attempts to study how the companies have excessively relied on the IP assets to remain competitive during the tough time when there is increasing resource crunch. The paper also attempts to identify how some smart companies have used downturn effectively to position themselves even better when the tough times of recession are over and the markets are again available by bringing in innovations which filled the needs of the market. The paper offers few key recommendations based on some of the best practices adopted by companies during economic meltdown. This study was done by selecting companies on random basis and interviewing IPR experts via e mail and telephones.