A Framework for Patent Management: Beyond the Legal Aspects

This article aims to develop a multidimensional measurement framework for patent management and to generate measurement items for all relevant constructs included therein. To this end, we focused on the first two steps (i.e. specify the domain of construct and item generation) of a six-step methodological approach for new scale development and validation. The analysis of the literature and interviews with experts allowed us to design the measurement framework of patent management with four core dimensions (generation, portfolio management, intelligence, and exploitation and enforcement) and two support dimensions (strategy and organization), and items to measure these constructs. This study represents a first step towards the development of sound scales to measure patent management with an overarching approach, thus laying the basis for developing a recognized landmark within the research area of patent management. Therefore, future research can benefit from a solid foundation to further extend our knowledge of the different core dimensions of patent management, and managers can get insights to assess the level of sophistication of their company's patent management activities.