Intellectual Property Management

Technical Data
Technical Name of the Business Function	BF_CRM_IPM_1
Type of Business Function	Enterprise Business Function
Available As Of	SAP Enhancement Package 1 for SAP CRM 7.0
Technical Usage	CRM Core
Application Component	BBPCRM
Directly Dependent Business Function Requiring Activation in Addition	Not relevant

You can use this business function to increase productivity through multiple improvements for Intellectual Property Management concerning usability and additional functions.

Integration

The integration of IPM with Product Sales and Distribution (SD) and Financial Accounting (FI) of SAP enhancement package 5 for SAP ERP 6.0, for any industry implementation, allows the related sales materials of an IP to be viewed in CRM, and provides additional capabilities for rights maintenance.

Prerequisites

You have installed the following components as of the version mentioned:

Type of Component	Component	Is Needed Only for the Following Features
Software Component	BBPCRM

You have activated the following business functions in the ERP system:

IPM, Industry-Independent Back End (ERP_IPM_BACKEND1)
IPM, Download to CRM of Material-Related IP Information (ERP_IPM_BACKEND2)

Features

Intellectual Property Management Functions

The system displays the related sales materials of an IP from ERP. Additionally, administrators can assign a generic tree profile to each usage in individual rights maintenance.

Web Client Interface for IP Confirmation Data

The new web-based user interface for usage confirmation includes:

Enhanced search capabilities for sales contracts
The displaying of recoupment information
A facility for users to trigger billing or to simulate billing from usage confirmation

Web Client Interface for Billing Due List for Outgoing and Incoming Royalties

A user-friendly web-based interface for billing due list for outgoing and incoming royalties.

Web Client Interface for Billing Documents for Outgoing and Incoming Royalties

A user friendly web-based interface for billing documents for outgoing and incoming royalties.

Intellectual Property Mass Changes

You can change the details of multiple IPs in one operation, basing the selection of IPs on a defined procedure. These mass changes can be executed either online or as a background process. A power user can create a procedure with defined steps for selection and operations (for example, to change or add) that can be saved as a template. This template can then be used by business users to specify the details in the procedure of the mass change run.

Contract Mass Changes for License Acquisition and License Sales

You can change multiple acquisition or sales contracts in one operation, basing the selection of contracts on a defined procedure. These mass changes can be executed either online or as a background process. A power user can create a procedure with defined steps for selection and operations (for example, to change or add) that can be saved as a template. This template can then be used by business users to specify the details in the procedure of the mass change run.

License Acquisition and License Sales Contract Maintenance

Easier maintenance enables users to:

Copy IPs and Rights and Royalties Scopes
Maintain the IP ID directly
Assign a cost center to sales contract scopes

The system now displays the related royalty scopes that are recouped for the advance group.

It also enables administrators to assign a generic tree profile to each individual rights maintenance usage.

Intellectual Property Generation

Allows users to generate multiple IPs based on a template and specified rules.

Rights Availability Analysis

The enhanced analysis of rights availability enables users to:

Select IPs in rights availability analysis without considering rights
Execute the combined functions Search IPs and Execute Rights Availability in the background
Select the scope type when creating a contract from rights availability
Print the results of the rights availability in different formats
Copy a rights availability request

The system now displays the rights scopes of the availability details sorted by Validity Start in ascending order.

Additionally, the enhanced analysis of rights availability allows administrators to assign a generic tree profile to each individual rights maintenance usage.

Holdbacks for License Acquisition and Sales Contracts and Rights Availability Analysis

The system allows users to:

Maintain holdbacks in acquisition and sales contracts
Request holdbacks in rights availability analysis
Maintain a requested license period for rights availability analysis

Additionally, the system now takes holdbacks into account when executing the collision check in sales contracts and when calculating the available rights in rights availability analysis.

Support Integration with Digital Asset Management Systems

You can assign digital assets that are stored in a third-party system to IPs, and you can search for IPs which are assigned a specific digital asset. This new function and the associated enterprise services significantly reduce implementation costs for the integration of a third-party Digital Asset Management system with IPM. This allows you to benefit from cost savings through reusability of digital assets.