This is a book of parts. It is concerned with how intellectual property law might be used as a key element in managing innovation. This constitutes the core of the book. The book is addressed to those who manage innovation not just in commercial enterprises, but also non-profit organisations and developing countries. The author, who is a lawyer, assumes that these individuals will be neither intellectual property specialists like himself, nor indeed necessarily lawyers, and legal discussion in the book is framed accordingly. On its periphery, the book ranges more widely. It looks at, among other things, the “social” role of innovation, the history of intellectual property law and its justifications and at the appropriate balance between protection for and access to innovation.

The value of this book is that it brings together a detailed understanding of management together with a high degree of expertise in intellectual property law. The author begins with the undoubtedly correct supposition that many enterprises concerned with innovation either do not pay sufficient attention to its interaction with intellectual property law or else have not developed sufficiently sophisticated strategies for dealing with that interaction. Given the enormous complexity of intellectual property law, and the fact that the author is concerned to offer a global perspective on how it might be used to manage innovation, as well as the fact that he has sought to frame strategies which would be relevant to individuals as well as organisations and even countries, he is to be commended for largely avoiding over-broad generalities.

The bulk of the book then looks at how intellectual property, specifically, patents, trade secrets, copyright and trade marks, arises in organisations and at the relevant law for protecting them. It also suggests practical strategies for managing intellectual property and approaches to their implementation. One chapter gives an overview of basic intellectual property law. Another sets out the key concerns for an intellectual property manager when developing strategies for his or her organisation. These might include establishing personnel practices in relation to internal and external rights, including for example, post-employment covenants, building a portfolio of intellectual property through either the internal development and protection of innovation or through procuring access to other's intellectual property, and forming relationships with outside bodies or individuals to develop new intellectual property. In two very interesting chapters, the author considers how intellectual property might be valued. The first recognises that the intellectual property which holds a value for an organisation might be that which it has developed itself and now exploits, its own intellectual property which is being exploited by others, with or without permission, and others' intellectual property which it, itself, exploits again with or without permission. The second chapter gives an interesting, and generally authoritative overview on the various methods of valuing intellectual property.

One of the strengths of this book is that it takes nothing for granted. The author recognises that not all innovation which is generated merits formal legal protection. Nor is it always cost-effective to take action against others who exploit an individual's or organisation's intellectual property without permission. Thus, the author suggests that there are times when it makes sense, depending upon the type of organisation or its goals, to make intellectual property freely accessible to others either by placing it in the public domain or by allowing its use through, for example, copyright fair use exceptions. At others, it may be worthwhile to prevent any public access by protecting innovation as a trade secret. Similarly, it might be strategically beneficial to seek permission to use the intellectual property of others, or alternatively to attempt to strip it of its legal protection through legal challenge or even to exploit another's intellectual property without permission. Furthermore, the author makes clear that all these decisions will depend upon the goals of the individual or organisation concerned, whether it be to make a profit, or in the case of non-profit organisation to make its innovation widely available, or for a developing country to develop its own ability to innovate or to protect its traditional knowledge.

However, the author is on less sure footing when he considers the broader issues surrounding intellectual property and innovation. While it is fair enough to simplify the law for the book's intended audience, it seems less justifiable to simplify something as nuanced as the social, economic and indeed psychological context in which innovation occurs, for example offering the bald statement that innovation “drives history”. Or to attempt to summarise the history of intellectual property in a few short pages, thus necessarily overlooking the fact that the role of patents in fifteenth century Venice might differ substantially from that in ninetheenth century England or the United States in the twentieth-first century. Rationales for intellectual property laws are also, of course, highly contentious and again by addressing the subject in a necessarily truncated manner, the author risks over-simplification and inevitably biases his overview in favour of the need for relatively strong legal protection for innovation–a supposition of this book. Ultimately, given the book's core purpose, one might question why it is necessary to address these issues at all and hence to dilute the authoritativeness of its overall tone.

The second general criticism relates more closely to this book's core concerns. Inevitably, perhaps, in a book concerned with innovation its emphasis in discussions of intellectual property and the protection of innovation lies on patents and trade secrets and to a lesser extent copyright. It is submitted that, on the one hand, trade marks fit uneasily into a book concerned with innovation. But it is also true, on the other, that trade marks have become a useful tool for protecting innovation when those other rights whose primary rationale it is to do so, fail. This is certainly true of copyright in the digital age and of patents, which are time limited, while trade marks are not. As a result, it can be argued that trade marks (and brands, which are not necessarily the same thing) constitute generally the most valuable intellectual property and as such deserved a more substantive discussion of their particular role in innovation than is given here. Nonetheless, the author is to be commended for having addressed an important topic, the role and legal protection of innovation, from an interesting cross-disciplinary perspective.