Thanks for your question.

Unfortunately, all too often, product development, marketing and legal do not collaborate as well as they might. Often times marketing and PD will come up with ideas and then ask legal to approve them. Legal is not involved from the beginning of the process. As a result, legal does not have a sufficient business context in which to evaluate risks and opportunities.

Why does this happen? Because the business people do not think legal understands the marketing or business development strategy. I have heard many frustrated business people say their lawyers do not understand strategy or management concerns.

However, business and legal are intertwined. Lawyers can contribute to risk optimization, if they understand the business strategy.

The collaborative process could have worked better when Apple was first developing its plans for the iPhone -- that is, prior to the original US intellectual property. Apple's business development team surely knew when launched the iPhone in the US that they wanted to sell it in China. Hopefully the lawyers did too. For some reason, Apple waited to apply to register the trademark in China after they registered the mark in the US.

The question is why. Were the lawyers out of the loop? Did they immediately advise the business development team that they needed to apply for a trademark in China? Maybe there was no trademark strategy that connected to the business strategy for the iPhone?

Regardless, better integration of legal moves with business strategy could have avoided the situation Apple found itself in. Successful integration requires that business and legal find ways to work better. This is a two-way street that I will write more about in future posts.

Doug

Thanks for your question.

Unfortunately, all too often, product development, marketing and legal do not collaborate as well as they might. Often times marketing and PD will come up with ideas and then ask legal to approve them. Legal is not involved from the beginning of the process. As a result, legal does not have a sufficient business context in which to evaluate risks and opportunities.

Why does this happen? Because the business people do not think legal understands the marketing or business development strategy. I have heard many frustrated business people say their lawyers do not understand strategy or management concerns.

However, business and legal are intertwined. Lawyers can contribute to risk optimization, if they understand the business strategy.

The collaborative process could have worked better when Apple was first developing its plans for the iPhone -- that is, prior to the original US intellectual property. Apple's business development team surely knew when launched the iPhone in the US that they wanted to sell it in China. Hopefully the lawyers did too. For some reason, Apple waited to apply to register the trademark in China after they registered the mark in the US.

The question is why. Were the lawyers out of the loop? Did they immediately advise the business development team that they needed to apply for a trademark in China? Maybe there was no trademark strategy that connected to the business strategy for the iPhone?

Regardless, better integration of legal moves with business strategy could have avoided the situation Apple found itself in. Successful integration requires that business and legal find ways to work better. This is a two-way street that I will write more about in future posts.

Doug

Can you proffer a quick example or two how "Apple’s product development, marketing, and legal teams work[ing] together ... could have better optimized its business and legal risks" — do you mean years ago, prior to the original stateside IP? Or the post facto China strategy (or lack thereof?)

Fascinated and curious. Thx

Can you proffer a quick example or two how "Apple’s product development, marketing, and legal teams work[ing] together ... could have better optimized its business and legal risks" — do you mean years ago, prior to the original stateside IP? Or the post facto China strategy (or lack thereof?)

Fascinated and curious. Thx